Falling Slowly
by Thoughtful Constellations
Summary: Just as things start to look up for Steve Rogers and Emma Carroll, HYDRA takes over SHIELD. Steve Rogers, Captain America, is now a wanted man with a price on his head. As he enlists the help of an ex-Army "pilot," and two SHIELD agents, he must stop HYDRA once and for all while keeping Emma, the most important thing to him, safe. (Sequel to Shaped by Things to Come) TWS-verse
1. Destinations

**Alright, so welcome to Part III of my Steve Rogers/OC series.**

**If you're a brand new reader and would like to hop on board the Steve and Emma train, it'd be beneficial to check out the first two stories, and they are as follows:**

_**Healing Touch**_

_**Shaped by Things to Come**_

**My Steve/OC series is in the same universe as my Tony Stark/OC series, but you don't have to read those in order to understand everything that happens (i.e. Grace Marks) in these stories. The first two will help you along and catch you up =)**

**If you're a returning reader, thank you so much. I love you, you're perfect.**

**So, uh, ok. Here we go! Feel free to leave a review (like, totally feel free. Feel all the freedom that Steve Rogers would want you to have) and let**** me know what you think!**

* * *

Chapter 1

Steve Rogers loved running. Whenever he didn't start out the morning with a good, long run, he didn't feel accomplished. Having had severely asthmatic lungs, running was something that he'd been deprived of in his younger days. For 27 years he'd believed that he would be unable to run—_really _run. So now that he actually _could _run, he didn't plan on stopping unless he had to.

"On your left," he breathlessly called out to the man he was passing on his right. Most people in the park were used to his unnatural running, and they didn't think anything of it anymore, but as he saw the man's head turn in surprise to look at him as he passed, he could only hope that this wouldn't turn into one of those awkward encounters he always tried to avoid.

Running brought out a kind of freedom that Steve couldn't find anywhere else—when he ran, he felt as if he could fly. He thought of all the eagle jokes his friends would have come up with to give him a hard time if he ever expressed that sentiment to them. But the thing was that if Steve really tried, he could almost feel as if he were actually flying, leaving behind the Earth and all the depressing things that came with humanity, things such as pollution, poverty, and the lack of world peace.

Oftentimes, Steve passed runners who listened to music. Well, if he were going to give an accurate percentage, he'd probably guess about 90% of the runners he saw on his early morning runs had some type of music device in their hands and earphones plugged into their skulls. He'd tried to run to music once but found it more distracting than anything. However, he knew that some people liked that kind of distraction—they liked the distraction from their burning lungs, screaming muscles, and pounding pulse. Steve, on the other hand, didn't want to be distracted from it; if anything, Steve _wanted _to feel those things. He wanted to hear the wind rush into his ears as he ran. That and the sound of his own breathing, his own heart thumping. Those sounds made up the true soundtrack of running, and he couldn't understand why anyone would want to listen to anything else.

Suddenly, he saw the man he swore he'd just passed in front of him again. Steve realized that this could get awkward, but he wasn't in the mood to deal with it; all he was in the mood for was the adrenaline and the rush and the freedom he felt from pushing himself to the max.

"On your left," he panted as he passed the man again.

"Uh huh. On my left. Got it," the man said out loud as he fell behind Steve again. Inwardly, Steve grinned, enjoying the sense of humor the man had. Truthfully, he hadn't even realized that he'd run a complete lap of the park until he'd seen the same light grey sweatshirt in front of him for a second time. He wasn't sure what his time was on running in the mornings, but he knew he could run a mile in about a minute if he really put his legs into it.

Before he knew it, Steve was coming around the curve again, and there, yet again, was the same runner in the grey sweatshirt. This time, the man seemed to hear Steve's footsteps behind him, and he turned his head towards the sound, anticipating it.

"Don't say it," he called over his shoulder in a warning. "Don't you say it—"

"On your left," Steve announced, just to be snarky, and he kept running.

"Aw, come on!" the runner shouted behind him. Despite himself, Steve grinned. He figured he'd do one more lap and then call it a day.

When Steve was thoroughly satisfied with the run he'd put in, he decided to go find the grey sweatshirt runner; it didn't take long to spot the guy. He was lying on the grass propped up against a tree, his forehead shiny and his chest rising and lowering with each heavy breath as he tried to catch his breath. Steve remembered the days when he hadn't been able to run more than a minute without breathing that heavily—crazy how he'd changed. Sometimes it still didn't fully register with him.

Crossing towards the man, he came up from behind the tree the guy was reclining against, and he placed his hands on his hips. "Need a medic?"

The runner laughed, grinning appreciatively. "I need a new set of lungs. Dude, you just ran like, 13 miles in 30 minutes."

"Guess I got a late start," Steve quipped. The runner chuckled again.

"Really?" He shook his head in disbelief. "You should be ashamed of yourself. You should take another lap." He looked away and then back at Steve, his eyebrows lifting in mild surprise. "Did you just take it? I assume you just took it."

Steve noticed the emblem on the runner's sweatshirt, and he pointed towards it. "What unit you with?"

"Fifty-eighth Pararescue," the runner replied. "But now I'm working down at the VA." He held his hand up towards Steve. "Sam Wilson."

Steve reached down to accept the guy's handshake, and he wound up helping pull him up to his feet. "Steve Rogers."

Sam grunted as he got himself to a standing position. "I kinda put that together. Must've freaked you out coming home after the whole defrosting thing."

Steve sighed and looked out towards the park. "Takes some getting used to." He looked back at Sam and nodded respectfully at him. "It was good to meet you, Sam."

He turned to go when Sam's voice stopped him. "It's your bed, right?"

"What's that?" Steve stopped and turned over his shoulder to look back at Sam, wondering if he'd heard the guy correctly.

"Your bed, it's too soft," Sam clarified, crossing towards Steve some more now that he had more air back in his lungs. "When I was over there, I'd sleep on the ground, use rock for pillows like a caveman. Now I'm home, lying on my bed, and it's like—"

"—lying on a marshmallow," Steve finished. He understood exactly what Sam was talking about. The first time he'd slept in a bed after having thawed out from the ice, he hadn't really been able to sleep that well. Granted, he'd also been in a strange hospital in a strange new century, but the bed hadn't done much to aid his racing mind. "Feel like I'm going to sink right to the floor."

It had been two years since he'd woken up. Two years since the Battle of New York, and around two months into his modern foray, he'd no longer felt the overwhelming softness of his bed keep him awake at night. Besides, he had something a little bit more comforting and soothing than a bed to get him to fall asleep more easily.

"How long?" he asked.

"Two tours," Sam replied. He paused. "You must miss the good old days, huh?"

"Well, things aren't so bad," Steve said with a wry smile. "Food's a lot better—we used to boil everything. No polio's good—Internet, so helpful. I've been reading that a lot trying to catch up. And my girl. My girl's been a godsend in getting me back on track."

"Marvin Gaye, 1972, _Troubleman _soundtrack," Sam said with a wide grin on his face. "Everything you missed, jammed into one album."

Steve reached into his back pocket and pulled out the pencil and notepad he always carried around with him to write down anything that confused him or anything he wanted to learn more about. "I'll put it on the list."

"How's that girl of yours, by the way?" Sam asked. Steve grinned.

"You can ask her yourself," he said. He took a few steps to the side and looked past Sam's shoulder. "Hey, Em! Come here!"

He calmly waited as Emma Carroll, SHIELD nurse and long-term girlfriend of Steven Grant Rogers, lifted herself off her rubber yoga mat and crossed towards him. She smiled brightly at him, her large gorgeous eyes catching the sunlight as she walked closer. Steve noticed the way her left hand reached down to roughly rub the top of her thigh, but he didn't say anything in front of Sam. Emma slowed to a stop beside him and looked up at Sam, her smile still just as large and radiant.

"Emma Carroll, this is Sam Wilson. Sam Wilson, Emma Carroll," Steve introduced. Sam stuck his hand out towards the blonde nurse.

"Sorry, I'm a bit sweaty," he said apologetically. Emma shook her head and waved a hand dismissively as she reached forward with her right hand to accept his handshake.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "Trust me, I'm used to the smell of sweat, so it's seriously no problem."

"I was just telling your man to listen to the _Troubleman _soundtrack to get caught up on the times," Sam said. Steve held up his notebook to indicate that he'd written it down.

"You know, that's a good one," Emma agreed, snapping her fingers. "It didn't even hit me to include that in my music recommendations for you."

"Well, now he's got the idea," Sam said. "It's a good album. Seriously, everything you missed is right there. What've you been giving him to listen to?"

"A little bit of everything," Emma replied. "The first thing I gave him to listen to was the top 20 songs from every year he was in the ice up until now, but since he got caught up on that a long time ago, I've been slowly slipping in little bits and pieces."

"It's true," Steve agreed. Suddenly, his cell phone beeped, and he slipped his notebook back into his pocket to pull his phone out. As he glanced down at it, he saw a text with the signature smiley at the end.

**MISSION ALERT. EXTRACTION IMMINENT. MEET AT THE CURB. :)**

"Alright, Sam. Duty calls," he said and held his hand out towards Sam. "Thanks for the run. If that's what you want to call running."

"Oh, that's how it is?" Sam asked with an amused look, accepting Steve's handshake.

"Oh, that's how it is," Steve replied, laughing.

"Ok," Sam said, chuckling and looking genuinely amused and appreciative of the Army captain's sense of humor. "Anytime you want to stop by the VA, make me look awesome in front of the girl at the front desk, just let me know."

"I'll keep it in my mind," Steve replied. He turned towards Emma. "Sweetheart, I've got to go. I'm sorry. Don't hate me."

"Impossible," Emma flippantly replied. She held out a hand to him to come closer, and he did. She placed her hand on the back of his neck and kissed him on the lips. "Be safe. Make smart decisions. Share with the other kids."

"Yeah, yeah. I love you," he said, his face softening.

"I love you, too. Now go." Emma stepped back as Steve quickly took her hand in his and squeezed it one last time before turning over his shoulder. Right as rain, a souped up black car appeared at the car. Emma lifted her eyebrows, impressed by the car. She didn't know a damn thing about vehicles, but she could appreciate a gorgeous one, and this car definitely fit the description of "gorgeous." She watched the window roll down and saw the familiar red glint of Natasha Romanoff's famous hair. Natasha leaned her head forward and looked at all three of them.

"Hey, fellas," she greeted. "Any of you know where the Smithsonian is? I'm here to pick up a fossil."

"That's hilarious," Steve said as he walked towards the car. Even though Emma wasn't the world's biggest fan of Natasha Romanoff, she couldn't help but grin at the perfect quip that she'd have to remember to tease Steve about later.

"Hey, Emma," the redheaded assassin said, her grin eyes fixing on the blonde.

"Hey, Natasha," Emma called back. Beside her, Sam crouched down to greet Natasha.

"How you doing?" he asked with a good-natured head nod.

"Hey," Natasha said back. Steve looked out the window and smirked.

"Can't run everywhere," he said.

"No, you can't," Sam agreed. Natasha floored the car, and then they were gone. Emma stood beside Sam Wilson the stranger, and she folded her arms over her chest. Sam straightened up from his position on the ground before looking at her and grinning. "You barely seem fazed by him running off."

"Oh, I'm used to it," Emma replied with an easy shrug. "Star-spangled man with a plan, you know. Always has things to do."

"Oh, I can tell," Sam replied, laughing. "Haven't felt that inadequate since Basic."

"If it makes you feel better, he's terrible at beer pong," she said. Sam looked at her in surprise and put his hands on his hips.

"_Captain America's _terrible at beer pong?" he asked incredulously. "How's that even possible? He's got to have like, the best arm ever."

"Ah, you would think," Emma pointed out. She lowered her left hand discreetly to rub the top of her aching thigh. "He forgets how strong he is and winds up overshooting the ball."

"Color me surprised," Sam Wilson replied. "Well, Miss Carroll. It was lovely meeting you and the captain. Hey, if you need anything while he's gone, just drop by the VA and come find me. Wait, hold on." He paused as he reached into his pocket. When he pulled his hand out, he had a business card, and he held it out to her. "There's my number and email. Don't hesitate to call if you need anything."

"Thank you so much. I'll keep this in mind." Emma took the business card and smiled up at him. "It was nice meeting you. Thank you again. I really appreciate this."

"No problem, ma'am. You take care."

"Thanks, you too." Emma lifted her hand in a wave as Sam the Sweatshirt Stranger turned and started to walk away. She looked down at the business card and read over his information; she always did appreciate people trying to help her out whenever Steve was gone on his missions. For the most part, she managed to do just fine. She was the epitome of strong, independent woman who could figure things out for herself—even if she couldn't cook worth a damn—but even then, it was nice to have friends to fall back on when she needed them.

Slowly, she crossed back towards the yoga mat she'd laid out in the grass while Steve had been on his morning run. She didn't know how in the world the Super Soldier had convinced her to get up at the crack of dawn to go exercise with him, but he'd somehow managed to do it. Well, that was lie—she _did _know how Steve had coaxed her out of her bed, and that was because of the ache in her left leg.

A couple months back she'd broken it in a car accident that had been anything but an accident. Ever since then, Steve had been trying to find out the truth behind the accident, and Emma had been trying to get her leg back to normal, hence the early morning yoga. She remembered the days back when she'd used to kind of roll her eyes at the women who did yoga in the park, but now she could no longer do that since she was one of them.

She crossed to her yoga mat and allowed her leg to give out from beneath her, landing smoothly on the mat. Leaning back, she lay down on it and simply looked up into the trees. Steve found his freedom—pun intended—in running, but she found hers in nature, she knew. To her, there was nothing quite like sitting outside with only the sounds of you and the world around you. Since D.C. wasn't exactly the great outdoors, she had to settle for the park in the National Mall, but really, that was good enough for her. Someday she'd be out of the city and hopefully somewhere with lots of trees and water and fresh air. But until then, she was happy enough to lie beneath the trees of Washington D.C. and pretend she was where buildings didn't choke the sky.

* * *

By the time noon rolled around, Emma was tired of her day. She was covered in blood and other fluids that she didn't want to think about, and all she wanted to do was change and go home, which was exactly what she was about to do.

"Em. Em!" The voice of Robin Farrell, her closest friend at the SHIELD hospital in Washington D.C. distracted her, and she turned towards the sound. Sure enough, there was Robin with her long, dark hair pulled up into a messy bun, her own scrubs covered in human fluids. "You going to change?"

"Yeah, I am. I'm changing, and then I'm out of here," Emma replied. Robin made a face and rolled her dark eyes.

"Fuck you," she said. "I'm here for the rest of the day."

"Hey, don't act like _I'm _the lucky one," Emma said with a smirk, waiting for Robin to catch up with her. "The only reason they gave me shorter shifts this week is because they're starting me on the night shift next week."

"Shit, I keep forgetting." Robin winced as she caught with Emma. The two women started walking slowly down the halls. "Why does this always happen to me? I feel like you _just _started coming back to work, and now they're moving you off my shift."

"Yeah, I really haven't been back that long at all," Emma admitted. "We can't get our lunches out together anymore."

"We can't," Robin agreed, sighing.

"And as soon as Steve comes back from his day, I'll be in the middle of getting mine started," Emma pointed out.

"Doesn't he usually get home around 7 or 8?" Robin asked. Emma nodded.

"Somewhere around there. My shift starts at 11, so I won't have that much time with him. Remember, I'm working 11 – 11," she replied.

"God, that's awful," Robin said. The two nurses crossed towards the Nurses' Lounge and pushed the door open. As soon as they stepped inside, and the door swung shut behind them, Emma felt a sense of calm come over her. The Nurses' Lounge was a sacred spot in the hospital, the one time the nurses could really get away from the crazy, chaotic hospital.

Emma had never worked in a hospital that wasn't a SHIELD hospital, so she could only imagine what it would be like to work at one; she didn't doubt that it was stressful and crazy, but she still didn't think it would be anything like a SHIELD hospital. At SHIELD, there were always important people running around, guns out, whispers passing, eyes darting, and brains assessing. If she had a dime for every time she'd heard someone shout, "I'm his S.O., and I order you to tell me what the hell's wrong with him!" or some variation of that, she figured she could quit her job.

The thing about the agents was that they thought they had the right to know everything that went on; they didn't like secrets unless they were the ones keeping them, and they always seemed to think that the doctors and the nurses were keeping something from them. Thankfully, Emma wasn't the kind of person who let angry Level Eight agents' yells get to her, so she didn't really blink an eye when it happened.

She crossed over towards her locker and opened it up. Quickly, she pulled her civilian clothes off the top shelf and threw them onto the couch behind her. She reached up onto the shelf again to pull down a plastic shopping bag to put her gross clothes in, and she turned back to the couch.

"How are your cousins?" Robin asked, stripping her shirt up and over her head.

"They're good," Emma answered as she did the same. "Dave's still Dave, Evan's off doing whatever it is he does, but Alex is surprising all of us by being a little homemaker."

"He's the one with the baby on the way?" Robin asked. Emma nodded.

"Yep. I'm supposed to fly up next weekend to help with the bridal shower. If Steve doesn't have a mission, he's going to go, too. Even though it's a bridal shower, my aunt and uncle were insisting he come if he can. I swear, my entire family's in love with him," she said, rolling her eyes with a grin.

"I don't fucking blame them!" Robin grinned back at the blonde nurse. "So if it's a bridal shower, will he be the only guy there?"

"I think the boys will wind up taking him to do something. Seriously, you have no idea how relieved I was when they said they liked him. When I say that my family's in love with him, I mean that my family's in love with him. And keep in mind that they've only met him once." Emma pulled her black skinny jeans and sighed at the feeling of being in her own clothes again. Robin shot her a wistful glance.

"Even though you've been getting shorter shifts because they're switching you to the night shift, I'm still jealous you're leaving early," she said.

"Hey, did you ever remember where you might've seen my neighbor?" Emma asked suddenly. When she'd still been unable to return to work, Robin had dropped by around the same time that Kate, the nurse across the hall, had, and Robin had sworn she'd seen her somewhere before.

"No. It's seriously been driving me crazy," Robin said. "I know I've seen her. I just can't place it."

Emma slid her loose white tunic over her head before she leaned down to pick her scrubs off the floor, shoving them into her plastic bag. "Alright. Looks like I'm out of here."

"Have fun having the rest of the day off," Robin said a smirk. Emma grinned good-naturedly at her friend as she crossed to the door.

"I'll try. Have fun with everyone here!" As she walked out the door, the last thing she heard was her friend's laughter.

* * *

"Target is a mobile satellite launch platform on _The Marion Star_," Agent Brock Rumlow said out loud as he gave the lowdown to the rest of the STRIKE team. "Setting up their last payload when the pirates took them 93 minutes ago."

"Any demands?" Steve asked.

"A billion and a half," Rumlow replied, glancing back towards the captain.

"Why so steep?" Steve asked.

"Because it's SHIELD's," Rumlow explained, as if that were supposed to clear up all the questions in the world. Steve ignored the burning stare of Agent Grace Marks, friend, fellow Avenger, and now fellow STRIKE team member, as she turned her gaze onto him to express how much she disliked Rumlow.

"So it's not off course, it's trespassing," Steve said, the realization dawning over him. He felt irritation start to rise up in his solar plexus—how many missions had he gotten like this recently? Too many. And he was fed up with it. Hell, he was fed up with Nick Fury for sending them all on these damn clean up missions.

"I'm sure they have a good reason," Natasha spoke up from beside him.

"You know, I'm getting a little tired being Fury's janitor," Steve remarked drily.

"Relax, it's not that complicated," Grace dismissively replied. She reached a hand back and smoothed it over her dark French braid as Steve's eyes landed on her quickly before looking back towards Rumlow.

"How many pirates?" he asked.

"Twenty-five," Rumlow replied. "Top mercs, led by this guy. Georges Batroc." He pressed a picture on the holoboard and brought it up bigger. "Next DGSE, action division. He's at the top of Interpol's red notice. Before the French demobilized him, he had 36 kill missions. This guy's got a rep for maximum casualties."

"Hostages?" Steve asked.

"Um, mostly techs, one officer…Jasper Sitwell." Rumlow brought up a list of the hostages and pressed Sitwell's picture. Grace didn't hold back her annoyed groan. "They're in the galley."

"What's Sitwell doing on a launch ship?" Steve asked out loud, more to himself than anyone else. "Alright, I'm going to sweep the deck and find Batroc. Nat, you kill the engines and wait for instructions. Grace, take care of the hostages. Rumlow, you sweep aft, cover Grace, get the hostages to the life pods, get them out."

"STRIKE, you heard the Cap!" Rumlow called out. "Gear up!"

Steve headed towards the back of the jet while Grace and Natasha went to go slip their parachutes on. Rumlow advanced towards them to get his, and he grinned at Grace.

"You know, it'd probably be a lot quicker and easier if we just called up Stark and asked him to foot the bill," he said. "A billion and a half isn't enough for him to lose a wink of sleep over, am I right?"

Grace turned her expressionless face towards him. "Or we could just harvest your organs on the black market. I hear that's a quick, easy way to earn money."

"Whoa where, tiger." Rumlow held his hands up in feigned surrender. "I was just joking."

"So was I," Grace deadpanned before she and Natasha turned over their shoulders and walked back to a grinning Steve. As soon as Grace had her back to the agent, she rolled her eyes. "God, I hate him."

"Your poker face is pretty good," Natasha replied, meriting a rare grin from the amber-eyed agent.

"Secure Channel 7," Steve said into his earpiece.

"Seven's secure," Natasha replied. "You do anything fun Saturday night?"

Steve fiddled with his earpiece and sent her a wry smile. "Well…all the guys from my barbershop quartet are dead so..." He paused, grinning at his own joke. "Emma and I went to see some live music in the park."

"Aren't they disgustingly sweet?" Grace asked with a sigh. Natasha shot her a look.

"Please, you and Stark go to the goddamn symphony," she said.

"So?" Grace retorted and lifted her dark eyebrows at the redheaded assassin.

"Coming up on the drop zone, Cap," a voice said in their earpieces.

Natasha glanced up at Steve, her green eyes glinting mischievously. "You know, if you asked Emma to marry you, she'd say yes."

"That's why I don't ask." Steve smirked. Interested, amused, and even mildly confused, Natasha tilted her head to the side curiously.

"Too shy or too scared?" she called over the roar of the jet's engines, watching as the back part of the jet opened for Steve to jump out. The Super Soldier briefly glanced back over his shoulder at her.

"Too busy!" he called back, and then he was gone, leaping out of the jet with ease. Grace lifted her eyebrows and pursed her lips at her redheaded partner.

"Told you it'd take them forever," she said. She felt someone come up beside her, and she turned to look at him. Grace Marks was only called in for dangerous missions, so she didn't know the rest of the team as well as Natasha and Steve did, but she could sense their movements better than any of them could.

"Was he wearing a parachute?" the guy asked.

"No," Grace answered with a slight laugh. "No, he wasn't."

* * *

By the time Grace and Natasha and the rest of STRIKE joined Steve on the deck, at least half of the pirates appeared to have been taken care of. Steve looked up at the parachuting agents, easily picking out Grace and Natasha from the rest of the buff, muscly men who were coming to join him.

"What do you think about Hawaii for a honeymoon location?" Natasha asked as she easily removed her parachute and walked towards him, Grace following right behind her. Steve only needed to take one look at Grace to catch the fact that the irises of her eyes had gone black, signifying that she was in survival mode.

Grace let out a snort. "No way. Hawaii's so cliché. What about Turks and Caicos?"

"Hawaii's not cliché! There are gorgeous beaches there."

"If you want gorgeous beaches, go to Turks and Caicos! Or Thailand. Thailand has some of the most beautiful beaches."

"Secure the engine room, secure the hostages, and then plan my wedding," Steve drily remarked.

"I'm multi-tasking!" Natasha protested as she jumped over the side railing and started off towards the engine room. Steve glanced over at Grace.

"I'm going, I'm going!" she defended, and she easily slipped away from the Super Soldier. However, what he did not see was that Grace didn't go to where the hostages were located—she went in the total opposite direction.

Steve bounded over the railings and aimed his specially designed gun with specially designed bullet towards the glass of what appeared to be the main control room. He pulled the trigger and watched the bullet sail forward before implanting soundlessly into the glass of the large window. Now that the bullet was imbedded and secure, the sound transmitters switched on, and he could hear everything the pirates were discussing.

Silently, Steve thanked himself for having taken the time to learn French. Batroc was definitely in the room, and they were definitely having a conversation they would want to kill him over if they knew that he were listening in.

"Cap, Marks isn't here," Rumlow's voice was in his ear. Steve paused.

"What?" he asked quietly.

"Marks isn't here," Rumlow repeated. "No one's seen her, and she's not answering her communication device."

"Dammit," Steve hissed. Where the hell was Grace? "Secure the hostages on your own, and finish out the original plan." He looked back up at the control room. "Targets acquired."

"STRIKE team in position," Rumlow replied.

Steve lifted the audio transmitter on his wrist to his mouth. "Natasha, what's your status?" Silence. "Status, Natasha."

"Hang on!" the Russian yelled back in his ear.

Steve waited patiently, and he brought up his other wrist—all these damn communication devices—to check in with Grace. "Grace, what's your status?" Again, silence. "Where the hell are you, Grace?"

"Engine room secure," Natasha said suddenly, only sounding slightly winded.

"In position?" Steve asked Rumlow.

"Affirmative."

"On my mark." Steve calmly waited. "Three…two…one."

Gunfire broke out, and Steve took off to go after Batroc. It wasn't that difficult for him to smash the glass, climb through, and break down a couple of walls as he did so, but it was mildly difficult for him to stay on task when he thought about how Grace was nowhere to be found. He exited the cabin, in pursuit of his targets, when Rumlow spoke again.

"Hostages in route to extraction. Romanoff missed her rendezvous point, Captain. Scorpion is still unresponsive, and no one has a visual on her," the agent said. "Hostiles are still in play."

"Natasha," Steve breathed into his communication line with her. Silence. He felt anger start to rise up—something was going on, and no one was telling him, and as a result, this entire mission was being compromised. "Batroc's on the move. Circle back to Rumlow, and protect the hostages. If you see Grace, don't let her out of your sight." More silence. "Natasha."

Suddenly, someone came off from his right and knocked him to the ground. Steve was having enough of this shit. This mission wasn't going the way it was supposed to, and he was getting fed up very quickly. Immediately, he rolled to get back up, his shield at the ready. The man advanced, and Steve didn't have much choice but to get in his defensive position. Back and forth they went, though the guy definitely had the upper hand. As the man moved into the light, Steve could see that it was Batroc.

Finally, Steve knocked him on the ground and stared, waiting to see if the French pirate would surrender, but Batroc drew himself back up and started attacking as if he'd never been knocked down in the first place. Batroc made the mistake of getting close to Steve, drawing in tight enough so that Steve now had the advantage of being taller and quicker. He knocked Batroc away, stepping back and watching as Batroc flipped easily and fluidly through the air before landing smoothly.

The two men were at a stalemate; their chests were heaving, and their eyes were blazing, and still, neither of them moved. And then Batroc took the initiative.

"**I thought you were more than just a shield**_**," **_he said in his native French. Panting, Steve decided that _this _was the final straw. Besides, he'd always loved a challenge. He lifted his shield and locked it into place against his back; without taking his eyes off of Batroc, he lifted his other hand and unbuckled his helmet. Batroc sneered as Steve pulled it over his head and dropped it to the ground.

"**We'll see**," Captain America replied. And then their moment was over. Batroc advanced, and everything became a blur of dodging, ducking, striking, and moving. Steve kicked Batroc backwards—one kick and then another, and Batroc was down. The Frenchman began to move, but Steve wasn't done; he raced forward and sent Batroc flying through the door in front of them, knocking him down and punching him unconscious.

"Well, this is awkward," a familiar female voice said. Grace. He looked up and saw both Grace and Natasha standing over a computer, the both of them leaned over as Grace continued typing something.

"What are you doing?" Steve angrily snapped. "Where the _hell _have you been? Rumlow had to get the hostages out all on his own." His gaze turned to Natasha. "And what are _you_ doing?"

"We're backing up the hard drive," Grace answered calmly, completely ignoring Steve's other questions.

"It's a good habit to get into," Natasha added.

"Dammit, Grace, this entire mission could have failed because of you. Do you realize that? Where the hell have been?" Steve's voice was furious. Grace finally glanced over at him, and if Steve didn't know any better, he would've sworn that he saw a flash of guilt cross over her typically blank expression. He crossed towards the two agents and looked up at the holoboard that displayed everything she was looking at. "You're saving SHIELD intel."

"Whatever I can get my hands on," Grace replied.

"Our mission was to rescue hostages," Steve said bluntly, turning his gaze back to the two women. Natasha lifted her red eyebrows, and she offered up a tiny half-smirk.

"No, that's _your _mission," she corrected. "And you've done beautifully."

"We had different orders," Grace interjected.

"And those orders were to ignore mine?" Steve snapped. A beep from the computer told the three that the download was complete. Grace popped it out and examined it before tucking it into a pocket on her uniform.

"Basically," she said. She looked over at Natasha, the both of them silently communicating, and they started to walk past Steve when he reached out and grabbed Grace's arm out of anger. As soon as his hand closed around the agent's arm, he realized his mistake. He waited for her to attack him out of instinct, but instead, her head snapped up towards him, her eyes furious.

"You just jeopardized this whole operation." Steve's voice was a low simmer. Grace's expression remained blank, but she yanked her arm out of his hand.

"I think that's overstating things," Natasha interjected. Steve looked up at her with an annoyed look, and he was about to respond when suddenly, he saw Batroc get up and throw what looked like a grenade in their direction. Without thinking, he reached out and grabbed Natasha—the good thing about Grace was that she could fend for herself in attacks like this thanks to her own Serum and then her added dose of Extremis she'd received last year.

Steve crashed through the window, Grace hot on his tail as the explosion rang out through the room. Quickly, he rolled both Natasha and himself to safety behind the wall, and he let her go. Grace landed in the middle of them, and she leaned her head back against the wall as she caught her breath.

"Ok. That one's on us," Natasha breathed. Her voice was full of reluctance, exhaustion, and frustration. Grace glanced over at Steve and saw the anger all over the young captain's face.

"You're damn right," he snapped, and then he was up on his feet and walking away from them. Natasha and Grace exchanged another look.

Natasha sighed. "Probably shouldn't bring up honeymoon destinations for a while, should I?"

"Nope."

"Thought so."


	2. Instagram

**Shoutouts to Lilybear3121, thecruelworldwelivein, chaz746, DessieDawn, MarvelWorksWonders, thatcrazyginger, NikNak, stuffoflegends, and Guest for reviewing! Thank you all SO much for such positive responses to the first chapter! Wow!**

**Just as a heads up, I'm leaving bright and early for North Carolina tomorrow morning, so I don't know when I'll be updating again. I should be able to update in two or three days, but just bear with me! I promise I won't leave y'all hanging. I just think the internet's going to be slow where I'm going.**

**On another note, I've decided I will write a Bucky/OC story since I got a lot of encouragement on that. (Thanks for the suggestion, DessieDawn!) I probably won't start writing that until after this one is finished, though, to keep on with continuity =)**

**Seriously, thank you all for the positive words and lovely encouragement. Keep letting me know what you think! Y'all are the best!**

**Enjoy! =)**

* * *

Chapter 2

Emma was not a fan of getting up early in the morning at all, and so for the past few weeks, Steve had been the one gently pulling her out of bed and getting her ready for their morning exercise regime. Now Steve was gone on a mission, and Emma had to force herself to get up; as she got dressed in leggings and one of Steve's old t-shirts, she wasn't ashamed to admit that she much preferred waking up via Steve Rogers than an alarm clock.

Undeniably, Steve was a huge and total sap; he knew it, she knew it, everyone knew it. He was an affectionate sweetheart who never shied away from showing his love, something that Emma could never appreciate enough. He never had any problem telling her he loved her, and he wasn't afraid to do little things to show her that he did. And one of Emma's favorite ways of Steve showing how much he loved her was how he woke her up.

Steve didn't need an alarm clock to wake up, so he was always the first one awake, taking his time in carefully bringing her to consciousness. Sometimes he rubbed her back while murmuring her name against her shoulder with his low, rumbly morning voice; sometimes he peppered kisses all over her face; sometimes he simply held her and spoke to her until she was fully awake. Nevertheless, he used the best methods to get her to wake up, and she didn't like being without them.

Somehow, Emma managed to drag herself out to the kitchen for a quick cup of coffee before grabbing her yoga mat and walking downstairs to go to the park Steve always liked to run in. The good thing about yoga was that she didn't need a specific place to do it, so she would do yoga wherever Steve wanted to run since he was more particular about where he ran.

The morning air was cool on her face, giving her a good, fresh wake up call. Letting out a yawn, she began walking. Thankfully, the park was just a short distance away from the small apartment she and Steve shared, so they could walk there; even the SHIELD hospital wasn't that far away and could be walked if she were in the mood for it, though she usually chose to take the Metro in since it didn't take as long and was more convenient.

When she finally got to the park, her mind was less foggy, and she was able to focus a little bit better. The caffeine from her cup of coffee was starting to bring her back into the world around her instead of in her disillusioned, sleep-deprived brain, and she was finally starting to feel like coming to the park had been a good decision to make. She breathed deeply and set about to centering herself, getting herself programmed for the day ahead of her.

A short amount of time had passed when she heard a voice off to her right.

"Emma Carroll!"

Emma, stretched out in the Warrior pose, looked in the direction of the voice, and she smiled as she saw the familiar face of Sam Wilson from yesterday. "Sam Wilson!"

"Good to see you out here so bright and early," Sam said cheerfully. Emma glanced up at the mostly dark sky, her grin widening.

"Yeah, it's so bright outside," she said ironically.

"I followed you on Instagram yesterday," the former soldier said, still beaming brightly. "You're just under 2.5 million followers."

"What can I say? I'm like the next Justin Bieber." Emma eased out of the Warrior to stand in a normal position as Sam crossed closer towards her. "I'll have to follow you back whenever I check my Instagram again."

"Oh, so you do follow backs?" Sam asked.

"Of course I don't. I'm a celebrity, but I do follow people I know in real life," Emma said in a playful voice. Sam threw his head back and laughed heartily at her joke.

"Well, I appreciate it," he said. "I'll try not to let it go to my head that a celebrity is following me."

"Yeah, that'd serve you well," Emma replied, still smiling.

"I'll let you get back to your yoga. I just saw you and wanted to come say hey since we're like this now." Sam held his crossed fingers up, and she returned the gesture.

"Definitely," she agreed.

"I'll see you later, Emma Carroll," Sam said as he took several steps back, already starting to jog in place. "Since your boy's not here to shit on me while I run, maybe now I can get some of that self-esteem back."

Emma laughed, and Sam waved one last time before starting his early morning run. Emma loved people with a good sense of humor—it was one of the many reasons she loved Steve—and Sam Wilson seemed to have an excellent sense of humor that coincided well with her own. She thought it was funny that he would bring up her Instagram—shortly around the time that Steve had convinced her to get up earlier than should have been legally allowed, she'd broken down and gotten an Instagram for the hell of it.

After 24 hours, she had 5,833 followers, and her first picture, a picture of a cup of coffee, had received approximately 3,000 favorites. Being the girlfriend of a superhero meant that she had to be careful about the pictures she posted, and she was very careful to avoid posting pictures that might indicate where they lived or anything that would put either her or Steve at risk. As many people as there were who loved Steve, there were enough people in the world who would love to eliminate the Avenger, and sometimes getting to the main target meant taking down others who stood in the way.

Steve had also become increasingly paranoid in the past few weeks. He hadn't told her the reason why—he'd just gotten far more watchful and cautious of where they went and who was around them. Emma figured it probably had something to do with the fact that someone had purposefully targeted the car she'd been in when she and her cousin Dave had gotten in their car accident, but Steve hadn't shared any reasoning behind his sudden paranoia. Whenever she'd pointed it out to him, he'd just smiled about it and then changed the subject.

Emma pulled her phone out and went to scroll through her followers in an attempt to find Sam Wilson to follow him back. As soon as she saw the slew of people who'd followed her since yesterday morning, she sighed. She was going to be there a while.

* * *

When Steve was angry, he was a force to be reckoned with. The second that he and the rest of STRIKE had touched back down at HQ, he was off that jet and furiously stalking up to Director Fury's office.

"You just can't stop yourself from lying, can you?" He burst through the doors of Fury's office without even bothering to knock or wait for the director to call him in—he was too angry. Far too angry. Director Fury was facing away from the entrance to his office, looking out the window with one arm propped up on his desk.

"I didn't lie—Agents Romanoff and Marks had a different mission than yours," he blithely replied. He knew exactly what Steve was talking about, and he hadn't even needed to look at the young man or to ask him why he was so upset.

"Which _you _didn't feel obliged to share," Steve snapped. He crossed towards Fury and stopped right in front of the man's desk, his body language screaming of confrontation and a refusal to back down.

"I'm not 'obliged' to do anything." Nick sounded truly and terribly bored and annoyed, only fueling Steve's anger even more. When he'd confronted Grace and Natasha about this right before the explosion, they'd both had that same blasé attitude and hadn't seemed to realize what they were doing.

"Those hostages could have died, Nick." Steve lowered his voice to a quiet seriousness as he tried a new tactic to get Fury to come clean with him. Fury finally turned around, his face showing that he was completely un-disturbed by all of this.

"I sent the greatest soldier in history to make sure that didn't happen," he said as he tilted his head up to look at the Super Soldier from his seated position.

"Soldiers _trust _each other," Steve retorted. "That's what makes it an army—not a bunch of guys running around shooting guns."

"Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye." Fury stood up and placed his hands on his desk as he leaned forward to get his point across to Steve. Steve blinked—he'd never heard the story of how Fury had lost his eye, but damn, he wanted to hear it right then. However, he didn't express that sentiment; he just kept his face drawn together and pissed off. "Look. I didn't want you doing anything you weren't comfortable with. Agents Marks and Romanoff are comfortable with _everything_."

"I can't lead a mission when the people I'm leading have missions of their own," Steve pressed, refusing to back down. His light blue eyes were flashing with anger, and all Fury looked was just annoyed, as if he were tired of having to explain to an overly righteous five year old why he had to stop being that way.

"It's called _compartmentalization_," Fury heatedly explained. "Nobody spills all the secrets because nobody knows them all."

Steve gave a small wry smile. "Except you."

Fury drew himself up to his full height and looked down at his desk as if he were searching for something before looking back up. "You're wrong about me. I _do _share." He paused and stared hard at Steve. "I'm nice like that."

Without saying anything else, he turned and started walking out of his office. Steve followed; Fury hadn't told him to follow per se, but he'd worked enough with the man to know by now when he was expected to follow and when he was expected to leave. Annoyance passed over his face as well, but he walked out of the office behind Fury and stopped in front of the elevators beside him. The door slid open when Fury pressed the button, and the two men stepped on.

"Inside Bay," Fury ordered.

"Captain Rogers does not have clearance for Project Insight." The elevator's cool, soothing voice always took Steve off guard a little bit; he was well used to it by now, but it was still weird for him to hear the elevator talking to him. At least that's how it felt to him.

"Director override—Fury, Nicholas J.," Fury commanded. He crossed to the back of the elevator and leaned on one of the metal bars that ran across the glass window of it.

"Confirmed," the elevator replied as the doors slid shut and started to move. Right away, Steve noticed the awkward silence, though he tried not to show it.

"You know, the used to play music," he remarked out loud. He felt Fury's eye on him, calmly studying the young man.

"Yeah, my grandfather operated one of these things for 40 years," Fury replied. "My granddad…worked in a nice building. Got good tips. He'd walk home every night, roll of ones stuffed in his lunch bag. He'd say hi, people would say hi back. Time went on, neighborhood got rougher. He'd say hi, they'd say, 'Keep on stepping.' Granddad got to gripping that lunch bag a little tighter."

"He ever get mugged?" Steve asked, all the while wondering why the hell Nick was telling him this story.

Fury gave a short laugh. "Well, every week some punk would say, 'What's in the bag?'"

"What'd he do?" Steve asked.

"He'd show him," Fury replied good-naturedly. "Bunch of crumped ones and a loaded .22 Magnum."

Steve processed what Fury had just told him and glanced out the window. This was the worst possible time to be thinking of this, he realized, but he couldn't help remembering how confused he'd been about the fact that there was a type of condoms called Magnums. Whenever he heard the word, he instantly thought of guns, and now there was a kind of condom that was named after a gun. Quickly, he pushed the connection out of his head. Definitely not the time or place to be thinking about condoms.

"My granddad loved people," Fury said fondly as he crossed closer towards Steve. His face grew serious, "But he didn't trust them much."

Steve wasn't sure what Fury was trying to tell him, but he knew he didn't like the meaning at all.

* * *

Emma finished taking her patient's vitals—every hour on the hour for this one—and turned to exit the room. Surprisingly, today was a slow day so far. No one had come in with life-threatening injuries, and none of the patients was acting up and being difficult. There was one agent who was mildly rude because she didn't want to stay in bed, but Emma could handle rude. Other than that, she was having a pretty calm day, which was exactly what she'd needed after the chaos of yesterday.

She held her patient's file in her hand and started walking down the hall to go replace it. She glanced down at it to make sure that everything was updated and good to go when suddenly, she nearly walked into someone due to the fact that she wasn't paying attention.

"Oh, no. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to run into you," a familiar male voice said as Emma looked up. Instantly, a smile split across her face, and she reached her arms up to hug Steve Rogers as his arms slipped around her waist. "Surprise."

"You're back. So soon," she said, her tone conveying that she was most definitely surprised. "I thought you'd be gone for longer."

"Nope." Steve shook his head. He pulled and ducked his head down to kiss her chastely on the lips. "I just got back. Thought I'd come see how you're doing."

"Everything's in working order here." Emma sighed and looked around. "For now, at least. Thankfully, I'm still getting off early, so I won't be here for much longer. What are you doing now?"

"After I leave, I'm probably just going to go clear my head," Steve answered. Emma noticed the baseball cap on his head—he only wore that whenever he was going somewhere that he especially didn't want to attract attention. Tilting her head to the side, she frowned.

"Is everything ok?" she asked. He looked up quickly at her and nodded. His blue eyes were filled with something she hadn't quite seen there before, and she wanted to press the issue, but she didn't. If Steve wanted to talk, he would.

"Yeah. Yeah, everything's fine. I'm just going to go…take a walk around. I don't know. Something." He shrugged noncommittally. "What do you want for dinner tonight? I'll cook."

Emma knew he was changing the subject because he didn't want to talk about what was bothering him. However, she smiled at his suggestion and drew in a little closer to him as she placed one hand on his hip. "Pizza?"

"Out of all the things I can cook, and you want pizza?" Steve asked, grinning at her. Emma nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "I'll even help you." Steve got that look on his face when he wanted to tell her no but didn't know how, and she started laughing. "Baby, I think I can handle helping you put sauce and cheese on a circle of dough. I might be useless in the kitchen, but I can at least do that."

"I don't know. It's a dangerous, high-risk mission," Steve said seriously. He stared at her with serious, wide blue eyes, and she mimicked his facial expression.

"Now that you mention it, Captain…I'm not sure. Let me think on it." She paused and squinted her eyes as if she were thinking. "Ok. I thought about it, and I came to the conclusion that yes, I do think I can handle such an important, dangerous mission."

Steve grinned. "That's my girl."

She held up the chart in her hand. "I have to go put this back. You can walk with me if you'd like before I have to get back to saving the lives of America's finest."

"I would love to walk with you," he replied. Slowly, they started walking down the hall towards the main desk of the floor where all the records and charts were kept.

"Oh, hey, guess who I ran into this morning," Emma said suddenly as her face lit up.

"Who?" Steve asked.

"Sam," she replied. "Sam Wilson, the runner from yesterday. He followed me on Instagram."

"Instagram?" Steve repeated with a confused look.

"The app on your phone where you take lots of pictures and make them look nice, so everyone else can be jealous about your life."

"Ah. Instagram."

"You know, you should get one. Your Throwback Thursday pictures would be hilarious."

Steve made another confused face. "What the hell is Throwback Thursday?"

"Every Thursday it's the popular thing to do to post pictures from way back when. So it's a throwback into time. And you would have the best throwback pictures of them all," Emma said with a grin. "You'd also have the best hashtags, too. #Freedom #Justice #America."

"I don't even want to know what hashtags are," Steve said with wide eyes. They reached the front desk, and Emma went around back to put her patient's updated chart back while Steve waited out front.

The last time he'd been in the hospital had been about two weeks ago when he'd gotten nicked by a bullet across his arm—to put it plainly, Emma had been furious; she'd shown up at the hospital when she'd gotten the call from him at 3 A.M., angrily lecturing to him about how careless and reckless he was. He'd sat calmly in his hospital bed, another nurse cleaning out the wound and stitching it up, nodding and looking as morose as he could. When Emma had finally lost steam, she'd sighed and folded her arms before apologizing profusely and telling him she was glad he wasn't mortally wounded. Whenever he got hurt, this was a normal routine—Emma would tell him about how he'd get himself killed, and he'd simply sit there and listen and nod and agree with her until she kissed him and apologized and told him she was proud of him. The only time Emma really ever showed any anger towards him was when he got hurt, which wasn't very often.

"How'd your mission go, by the way?" Emma asked as she came back around from behind the desk. "Everything went well?"

Steve paused. "More or less."

"Uh oh. That doesn't sound good," she said. She knew it'd be pointless to ask what had happened because Steve's missions were super classified, meaning he couldn't tell her anything about them, but she'd learned she probably didn't want to hear about them, anyway.

"No one died, so…focus on the positives," he replied with a nonchalant shrug. Glancing up, he looked around at all the hubbub around them. "Do you need to get back to work? I don't want to take up any of your time if you're busy."

"No, it's been a slow day. I'll walk you out to the doors, though. I think everyone can manage just fine without me for a few minutes." Emma smiled and started walking down the hall, Steve falling into step beside her. As they started their walk down to the main entrance, Steve took a quick peek at her. Natasha was right that if he asked Emma to marry him she'd say yes. Even though they'd never talked about getting married, it was just kind of an unspoken agreement. They'd told each other that they had every intention of spending the rest of their lives together, so it was automatically assumed that they would get married.

At his age, saying he had a "girlfriend" didn't feel very adult; if anything, it made him feel as though he were a high school kid who didn't know a damn thing about women. Well, Steve would openly admit that he felt he didn't know anything about women, but he felt that a 95 year old man was too old to have a girlfriend; that being said, he couldn't help but wonder how much their lives would actually change together if they got married.

They were already living together and had been for the past year—they were a team in every way, shape, and form, so really, now that Steve thought about it, the only thing that would really be changing would be credit card and bank stuff, insurance, and Emma's last name if she so chose to take his.

"What's on your mind?" Emma asked, breaking him out of his thoughts. He blinked and looked at her. She had her hair pulled back into its standard work-week ponytail so that the long blonde strands stayed out of her face while she worked. Whenever he looked at her, he always fell a little bit more in love with her, if that were even possible. She was looking at him with those large grey-green eyes that didn't expect anything of him, and suddenly, Peggy's words came back into his head.

_Keep her safe._

"Nothing," he said as he tried to push the memory out of his mind. "It's just been a long 24 hours, and I can't wait to clear my head out."

"Fair enough," Emma said with a nod. "I'll text you when I get off work. I have a few errands to run, so I probably won't be home until a little bit later."

Steve slowed to a stop in front of the large sliding glass doors that led into the hospital, and he nodded. "Ok. I'll let you know when I'm on my way home."

"Sounds good. Don't start the pizza without me," she replied. Emma and Steve weren't very big on PDA, but she couldn't help lifting up onto her tiptoes and tilting her head back to kiss him full on the mouth. The kiss didn't linger very long since they were in public, after all, but it was long enough to satiate the both of them for now. Emma pulled back, her smile just as wide and beautiful as it always was. "I'll see you tonight. I love you."

"I love you, too. Text me, and let me know your status later," he said as he let his arms reluctantly fall away from her sides.

"Roger that, Captain. Now go enjoy some fresh air. Or whatever it is you're planning on doing." Emma lifted her hand to her forehead in a playful salute, and he returned it, catching the beam of her smile as she turned over her shoulder and walked away.

* * *

In addition to the fact that Grace and Natasha had nearly fucked up his mission because of Nick Fury, what Steve didn't tell her was that Nick had shown him Project Insight. Project Insight consisted of three enormous helicarriers with weapons built onto it that would "neutralize threats before they even happened," Fury had explained. Project Insight went against most everything Steve believed in—what happened to innocent until proven guilty? If Project Insight took place—and from what Fury had indicated, Project Insight _would _take place—SHIELD would be keeping under control by using fear.

Steve thought back to the one-liner he'd whipped out to Fury in frustrated anger: "This isn't freedom—this is fear."

If Emma had been there, she would've given him a thumbs up on the freedom comment. For whatever reason, she loved teasing him about that, and because it was her and because it was a _little _bit funny, he didn't mind. In a way, it reminded him of Bucky. Bucky had made little funny comments every now and then about Captain America and all his freedom.

All of this with Fury and Project Insight and even wanting to marry Emma had gotten Steve thinking about Bucky. And so the best way for him to clear his mind was to go see his exhibit at the Air & Space Museum. Ever since Emma had convinced him to go, he'd found more peace with Bucky's death, but whenever he wished he had his best friend back, he'd go walk around and look at the section specifically dedicated to his best pal and former partner.

As he walked around the exhibit, he kept his baseball cap low and his face turned up. He'd seen all of this numerous times by now, but he still took his time as he walked through it. It baffled him that people were _this _interested in him and the things he'd done. He didn't think of himself as a hero, and it was still strange for him to realize that people all across the country—all across the _world_—looked towards him as a hero when really, he just thought of himself as that kid from Brooklyn.

When he turned his head to look across the room, he saw a kid. The kid was staring at him with huge eyes that only came with realizing who Steve was. Smiling, Steve lifted a finger over his mouth in a "shh" gesture, and the kid nodded, his eyes only seeming to widen even more as Steve walked past him and towards the uniforms. The blond Super Soldier couldn't help the smile that still continued to linger over his face—he'd always liked kids, and he had to admit that one of the best parts of being Captain America was getting to see the kids and interact with them.

As he left the kid behind him, he looked up at the uniforms of his Howling Commandos. He always forgot how much he missed his old uniform until he was standing there in front of it. Emma didn't know this, but he sometimes came here when he got off early from SHIELD or if he didn't have anything to do that day. He didn't do it often, but every so often he would, and he'd look at his uniform, and he'd look at the faces of his old friends and teammates.

Just like always, there was Bucky's face staring down at him. James Buchanan Barnes, childhood best friend and partner of Steven Grant Rogers. Steve looked up at the biography detailing Bucky's life above the video playing clips of the two of them. He could practically hear Bucky's voice in his head, "Look, Steve, don't do anything you don't wanna do. If it ain't right, it ain't right. That's all there is to it. And what do you mean should you marry the girl? Of course you should marry her. A dame like that doesn't show up every other day. Don't be stupid."

And then without warning, he was hit with the memory of the dream he'd had several weeks ago—he'd dreamt that Bucky had shot and killed Emma on the very train he'd fallen off of. The dream had rattled Steve so much that he'd been extra-protective of Emma to the point where she'd asked him if everything were ok.

No, he wanted to say. But he never did. Instead, he just nodded and said that he was totally fine.

* * *

When Steve found himself at the VA, he wasn't sure why he'd thought to go there. Today had been a weird, long day, so ending up at the VA wasn't exactly the strangest possible thing that could have happened, but it was enough to make him stop and think about why he'd ended up there. He didn't know where he was going, but he quietly walked through the hall in the hopes of not looking like he was lost.

Suddenly, he heard a voice talking. From what he could make out, it was a woman who was talking about how she'd freaked out when driving because she thought she'd seen an IED. Carefully, he crossed towards the sound of the voice and looked into the large room with chairs filling it. Right at the front of the room standing at the podium was Sam Wilson.

"Some stuff you leave there, other stuff you bring back," Sam said. He looked much more somber and serious than the last time Steve had seen him. Steve leaned against the doorway, his hands in his pockets, and he listened as he tried not to understand how much he related. "It's our job how to figure out how to carry it. Is it going to be in a big suitcase or in a little man-purse? It's up to you."

Silence filled the room, and Steve watched the people's faces process what Sam was saying, watched as they tried to understand and feel better about the things they'd seen and experienced. The things they'd done. And Steve understood all too well what they were feeling emotionally because he'd felt it, too.

"Alright. I'll see you all next week. Keep your heads up, and think about what kind of bag you carry your memories in. Write it down if you want to. Talk about it, even if it's to yourself. Anything can help." Sam stepped away from the podium and glanced over at Steve in the doorway. He smiled at the Super Solider and gave him a nod that let Steve know he'd be over in a few seconds.

Steve patiently walked out into the hall and stood outside—he didn't know why he was there. He'd just been walking, and he'd found himself at the building. In a way, it was kind of like when he'd first woken up and had simply started walking around the hospital only to find himself in the nurses' lounge with Emma. He kept his hands in his pockets and turned his face down so people couldn't make out the facial features that defined who he was.

When he looked up, he saw Sam shaking hands with the woman who'd spoken about the incident with the car before turning over his shoulder and walking towards Steve. "Well, look who it is. The running man."

"Caught the last few minutes," Steve replied. He crossed towards Sam and leaned against the wall as Sam stopped by a small table to grab his stuff. "It's pretty intense."

"Yeah, brother," Sam agreed. "We all got the same problems. Guilt. Regret."

Steve saw the change in the man's face—he knew that look. "You lose someone?"

"My wingman," Sam replied, his face drawn. "Riley. Flying a night mission. Standard PJ—rescue op. Nothing we hadn't done a thousand times before. Till an RPG knocked Riley's dumbass out of the sky." He shook his head. "Nothing I could do. It's like I was up there just to watch."

"I'm sorry," Steve genuinely answered. He understood Sam's pain, and he knew that Sam knew he related.

"After that, I had a really hard time finding a reason to be over there, you know?" Sam continued with a slight frown on his face.

"But you happy now? Back in the world?" Steve asked as he nodded towards the building around them.

"Hey, the number of people giving me orders is down to about…" Sam looked around him as if he were trying to find the people ordering him around. "…zero?" Finally, he smiled. "So hell yeah. What, you thinking about getting out?"

"No." Steve shook his head, trying to deny the fact that the thought had crossed his mind. He paused. "I don't know. To be honest, I don't know what I would do with myself I did."

"Ultimate fighting?" Sam suggested, and Steve laughed. "Just a great idea off the top of my head. But seriously, you could do whatever you want to do. What makes you happy?"

Steve paused as he thought about it. "I don't know. Emma. Emma…she…she makes me happy."

"What else?" Sam asked. Steve shrugged and looked away.

"I don't know," he admitted.

"Would your girl support you getting out?" Sam asked. Steve smiled softly, and he nodded as he pictured Emma's face the last time he'd seen her. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and folded his arms over his chest.

"Yeah. Yeah, she'd be thrilled," he said. "Though really, I think she'd be thrilled either way."

"Well, knowing a few less people are trying to shoot you would probably be comforting to her," Sam suggested.

"Yeah, it would," Steve admitted. "She told me she saw you this morning, and you told her you followed her on Instagram."

"Hell yeah!" Sam cheerfully exclaimed. "I wasn't passing up on my opportunity to follow America's Sweetheart."

Steve started laughing, and he shook his head appreciatively. "Don't ever call her that, or she'll hate you forever."

"Please, I've seen the interviews," Sam replied with his easy, teasing smirk. "That girl doesn't have it in her to hate anyone. You got yourself a good one there, Cap."

"Yeah, I do," Steve agreed. He looked down at the ground and nodded again, thinking about her. "I do. She'd be very happy if I told her I was thinking about…I don't know. Hanging up the shield? For lack of a better phrase?"

"How long you two been together now?" Sam asked.

"Little over two years. Been living together for the past year," Steve replied.

"Thinking about settling down?" Sam lifted his eyebrows mischievously, and Steve grinned again.

"I don't know. Yeah. Maybe. It'd be nice," he admitted. "At least someday if not now."

"No better time than the present, my friend." Sam leaned forward and clapped Steve solidly on the arm as if they were old buddies; strangely, the gesture reminded him of Bucky, and he felt a quick stab of missing his old best friend.

"You're right," he said. "It's just…we're both wrapped up in SHIELD, and we both have stuff going on…"

"Too much stuff to make room for love?" Sam countered. "She's cool. Not many other ladies would be fine with you dashing off to go fight evil the way she was when I saw her yesterday."

"You haven't seen her when I've been injured," Steve said, grinning again. "She's a whole other person then."

"I don't doubt it," Sam said. The two stood in silence for a few brief seconds, and Steve thought about everything he and Sam had just discussed. Finally, he sighed and lowered his arms.

"I'll let you go," he said. "I'm supposed to be getting supplies to make pizza for tonight, anyway."

"He runs, _and _he cooks," Sam quipped. "Thanks for stopping by, man. It was good seeing you."

"You, too," Steve said. "Hey, do you want me to make a little scene on my way out for the woman at the front desk?"

Sam's face lit up, and he started laughing. "Well, I sure as hell ain't going to stop you if you do. It's not every day Captain America pops by for a visit."

Steve started walking towards the door, his blue eyes carefully watching the front desk as he passed it. Then very dramatically and gracefully, he turned back towards Sam. "Bye, Sam! Thanks for the good talk! I'll see you soon!"

"No problem, Steve! Take care, buddy!" Sam shouted back. Out of the corner of Steve's eye, he saw the woman at the front desk look up. He suppressed the urge to smile as he saw her eyes go wide as she glanced back and forth between both Sam and Steve, putting two-and-two together.

Steve turned over his shoulder, a grin on his face, and he walked out the door. Surprisingly, he felt better after talking with Sam. He seemed to have a talent for finding kindred spirits in the strangest places—first there'd been Emma, then there'd been Grace, and he had a feeling that this wasn't going to be the last time he saw Sam Wilson.

He stepped outside and breathed in the fresh air. D.C. in springtime was warmer than New York, but he was still glad he'd thought to wear a jacket. As he started out down the stairs, he pulled his phone out to shoot a quick text to Emma.

**I'm on my way to pick up some supplies for pizza sauce. Need anything while I'm at the grocery store?**

He was about to put his phone back in his pocket when it buzzed, and he saw she'd replied.

**I should be good, thanks. I have to stop by the hardware store to pick up some screws, and I also have to go to the post office and Bed, Bath, and Beyond, so I'll probably be a little later than I'd like getting home. Just left work.**

Steve typed out his reply.

**Ok. Have fun. Love you**.

Immediately, his phone buzzed.

**Love you, too ^_^**

As he slid his phone back into his pocket, he couldn't help thinking that even though certain things about his life were shitty, there was always that one good thing to keep him going, and that was Emma. Even with her jokes about freedom.


	3. Shot

**Shoutouts to Lilybear3121, DessieDawn, stuffoflegends, and thecruelworldwelivein for reviewing! **

**Ok, I know this is super short, but I only have like, an hour's worth of WiFi at this camp where I'm working this summer, so I could either take like, three days to write a long chapter or post a shorter chapter now. **

**Keep leaving me your thoughts and opinions! Your reviews always make my day, and I'm actually freaking out right now over this whole camp thing because I'm literally living in a single-room built in the '60s with seven other girls, and I'm so stressed out because snakes get in the room. Ugh, so I could use some reviews ;)**

**I love you guys. Hopefully I'll be able to keep updating, even if it's not every other day like I've been doing. Don't give up on me, guys!**

**Enjoy! =)**

* * *

Chapter 3

Steve checked his phone to see if Emma had gotten his last text saying he was on the way home, but it was still marked as unread, something that he found a little strange. Emma was always on top of her phone whenever she wasn't at work, and about 30 minutes had passed since he'd actually sent the text message. He reached the landing of the stairs that led to his apartment and tucked his phone back into his pocket, digging his keys out. He wasn't even sure if Emma were home since she hadn't texted him to let him know, another thing that wasn't like her to do.

"Hey, I've got to go, though." The voice of Kate the Nurse from Across the Hall caught his attention. He looked up and saw her with a basket of clothes in her arm and a phone pressed to her ear. Kate quickly hung up and dropped her phone into her laundry basket. When she looked up, she smiled and gave an awkward laugh. "My aunt…she's kind of an insomniac."

"Hey, if you want, you can use our machine," he offered, nodding towards her laundry. "Might be cheaper than doing it in the basement."

"I will take your word for it," Kate replied with a smile. "Thank you, but I already have a load in downstairs. And you don't want my scrubs in your machine—I just finished a rotation in the Infectious Diseases ward."

"I'm used to that around here," Steve answered. "Well, if you ever want to, just let Em or me know."

"Will do." Kate started walking towards the stairs, and Steve turned to the door when she turned over her shoulder. "Oh, and I think you or Emma left your stereo on."

"Oh. Thank you," Steve answered, and he turned to look back at the door. There wasn't any light coming out from the space between the door and the floor. Something wasn't right. Emma wasn't answering her texts, and the stereo was on when the lights were off. Steve quickly turned and walked down the stairs and out the door to the fire escape. He couldn't shake the fear, the horrible thought that something had happened to Emma. Peggy's words played over and over in his head as he feared that he'd failed.

His shield out, he moved into the alley and started towards the fire escape. With a quick easy leap, he was on the fire escape and climbing upwards towards his apartment. Fear rose in the back of his throat, and he had to physically swallow it down to keep himself calm and under control. He reached the window that led into his apartment, and he silently slid it upwards just enough for him to creep through.

Instantly, he recognized the song that was playing: "It's been a Long, Long Time" by Harry James and Kitty Kallen. It was the first song he and Emma had danced to actually, now that he thought about it. He ducked into his apartment with ease and immediately began assessing the situation. Thanks to his Serum, he could see perfectly in the dark, and his blue eyes started to scan over everything. There was no sign of a struggle, no sign of anything missing or gone awry. The music was definitely coming from the living room area, and he crept down the hall to peek his head around the corner. What he saw next pissed him off and filled him with relief all at the same time.

Nick Fury was sitting in one of the chairs in the living room, his eye focused on Steve. Emma was sitting on the floor, her large eyes staring up at him. She was safe.

"I don't remember giving you a key," Steve said sharply to Fury. He looked back at Emma, and that was when he saw that her face was full of fear. Alarm started to creep over him, and he looked back at the director to demand what the hell was going on.

Groaning, Nick shifted in his chair and leaned forward. "You really think I'd need one? My wife…kicked me out."

"Didn't know you were married," Steve answered, his eyes flicking back and forth between Emma's scared face and Fury's overwhelmingly calm face.

"A lot of things you don't know about me," Fury said. His voice was more serious than Steve had ever heard it, and he knew that that was probably the most honest the director had ever been with him.

"I know, Nick. That's the problem," Steve replied. He crossed farther into the room and held his hands out to Emma to help her up. "Honey, why are you on the floor?"

"She wants to be," Nick said in a sharp tone that told Steve to let Emma stay where she was. He froze and then looked at Fury with a concerned, angry look in his eyes. Crossing back to the side of the room, he flipped the lights on. When he turned around to look at Fury, he saw the man covered in injuries. Fury gave him a knowing look and then reached up to turn the lamp beside him out. Steve watched with wide eyes as Fury pulled his phone out and started typing. He turned the phone around so Steve could read the screen.

**EARS EVERYWHERE**

Steve lifted his head and started looking around. Nick's text only meant one thing, and that one thing was the fact that his apartment was bugged. Where the hell could anyone have bugged it? He knew he wouldn't be able to find it just by giving the place a quick sweep over, but it was more out of principle than anything.

"I'm sorry to have to do this, but I had no place else to crash," Fury said. He typed out another message and then turned it towards Steve.

**SHIELD COMPROMISED**

Steve's eyes flicked over to Emma, and his heart nearly broke as he saw her sea-colored eyes full of fear. This was exactly what he hadn't wanted to happen, and here it was happening in front of him like a horrible, horrible nightmare.

"Who else knows about your wife?" Steve carefully asked, trying to convey that he what he was _really _asking about was how many other people knew about SHIELD's being compromised, whatever the hell that meant. How could SHIELD be compromised? SHIELD was…well, SHIELD.

Fury forced himself to his feet and weakly took a few steps towards Steve as he displayed another text message.

**YOU AND ME**

"Just…my friends," the director said.

"Is that what we are?" Steve asked. His voice was more accusatory than he'd originally intended it to be, but he couldn't help it; he was furious that Fury had come here, thereby putting Emma in danger, but he was also furious with himself for not having taken better precautions with her.

"That's up to you," Fury replied. Suddenly, gunshots sounded, the windows in Steve and Emma's living room shattered, and Nick Fury let out a cry of pain as they hit him. Without hesitating, Steve grabbed Nick and started pulling him out of sight from the window as Emma leapt forward towards them.

"Emma, get back!" Steve shouted.

"I've got this!" she shouted back. She slid to her knees beside Nick and started ripping his shirt off.

"Emma!" Steve grabbed her arm, and she looked up sharply at him, her face all business now.

"Steve, I'm a nurse. I've got this," she said. "I need to do this."

Steve hesitated—everything in his body told him to _go_, to get her out of there, but the determined, fiery look on her face told him that he couldn't make her leave even if he picked her up and hauled her over his shoulder to get her out of there. He went to step back from Fury and Emma when Fury reached out and gave Steve a flash drive; in fact, it was the same flash drive that Grace and Natasha had fucked up their mission to get.

"Don't…trust...anyone!" Fury exclaimed in a labored voice. Steve froze.

"Steve, you need to back up!" Emma shouted. Her voice, so firm and commanding snapped the Super Soldier out of his shock, and he was about to back up when the sound of the door being kicked in alerted him. Immediately, Steve positioned himself with his shield in front of him so that both he and Emma and parts of Fury would be protected if anyone tried to attack.

"Captain Rogers?" Kate's voice. Sure enough, a head of blonde curly hair rounded the corner except Kate was wielding a gun. "Captain. I'm Agent 13. SHIELD Special Service."

"Kate?" Steve asked, the pitch of his voice rising at the end. So the surprises just kept coming.

"I was assigned to protect you and Emma." Kate lowered her gun and crossed farther into the room where Emma was already starting to assess Fury's wounds and get him calm. Steve looked back, and he saw what he swore to be Emma jamming her fingers in one of the bullet holes, and he swallowed hard.

"On whose order?" he asked to distract himself from the fact that his girlfriend was shoving her hand into a bloody body.

Kate stopped as she saw Fury, her body still in shock. "His." She dropped to her knees beside Emma. "What's his status?"

"Unresponsive. Internal bleeding. He's shot to hell—no exit wounds—one of his major arteries is open, but I'm holding it closed," Emma quickly debriefed. Gone was the scared young woman who'd been sitting on the floor of her living room, and in her place was a determined, unwavering woman that Steve hadn't ever had the chance to witness.

Kate brought a walkie-talkie up to her mouth and began talking calmly but firmly into it. "Foxtrot is down—he's unresponsive. I need EMTs. Emma Carroll is holding one of his arteries shut."

"Do we have a 20 on the shooter?" the person on the other end of the comm-link asked. Agent 13 looked up at Steve, as if she were waiting for him to give her an answer. Steve looked out the window and saw a figure move on the roof that'd been the origin of where the shot had come from.

"Tell 'em I'm in pursuit," he said, and then he took off. Emma looked at Agent 13, and Agent 13 looked back at her.

"So you're not a nurse," Emma said, her tone making it seem as if it were totally normal for her to be on her knees in her apartment with her fingers jammed inside someone's bullet wound.

"No," Agent 13 replied. Nick let out a quiet groan, and Emma leaned over him.

"Director Fury, stay with me. Can you hear me?" she asked. The director gave no response. "Shit. Come on, Director. If you can hear me, move your right hand."

"This is bad," Agent 13 said quietly.

"No shit," Emma said. She looked up at the blonde agent. "You ever been treated at the SHIELD hospital here?"

"Yes, I have." Agent 13 nodded. Emma nodded, realization dawning over her.

"No wonder my friend Robin recognized you. You were a patient there. Not one of the nurses." She glanced back down at Nick. Just as she was wondering where the hell the EMTs were, they burst through the door and around the corner. Instantly, she went back into nurse mode. "I'm holding his artery shut."

"We've got this from here, ma'am," one of them said as he knelt beside her. Emma withdrew her fingers out of the bullet wound and moved back as the EMTs surrounded the director of SHIELD and began working on him. She kept moving back until she had her back against the wall. As she watched the EMTs start to move Fury onto a stretcher, she noticed that her hands were shaking. She looked up and over at Agent 13, and the woman's eyes drifted up from Emma's shaking hands to her face. Emma quickly lowered her hands and looked away.

"Come on, let's take you in," Agent 13 said. Emma thought about protesting and waiting for Steve, but she nodded.

"Ok," she said. She followed the agent down the stairs and out the door behind the EMTs. Instead of following the EMTs straight into the ambulance, however, Agent 13 walked to a car parked on the curb and gestured for Emma to follow her. Emma was incredibly self-conscious of the fact that she was covered in blood, and she didn't want to get it anywhere in the woman's car, but it didn't look like Agent 13 really gave that much of a shit, so she opened the door and got inside.

"What happened?" Agent 13 asked. Emma thought back to what Fury had told Steve: don't trust anyone.

"I don't know," she said. "I didn't see anything until the gunshots."

"I didn't see you come back. Last time I saw you, you'd left," Agent 13 said. Emma glanced over at her.

"So you really have been watching us," she said. "What's your name? Your real name?"

"Sharon," the woman replied. "And yes, I've been watching you two."

"Why?"

"Orders. We needed to make sure both you and Captain Rogers were safe," Sharon explained. Emma was quiet, and she looked down at her bloody hands.

"I'm sorry I'm getting blood in your car," she said. Sharon glanced over, and she shook her head.

"It's not my car," she said. "It's SHIELD's. They can pay to get any of the stains out."

"Oh. That's…comforting," Emma replied as she kept looking down at her hands. Her phone started buzzing in her pocket, and she reached into it, no longer trying to keep blood off the remaining clean spots on her clothes. She winced as she smeared blood onto the glass of her phone, but she looked at it and saw that it was Steve. "Steve?"

"Emma? Where are you?" Steve's voice was full of panic and worry.

"I'm in the car with Shar—Agent 13. We're on our way to the hospital. EMTs came and got Director Fury," Emma replied. "Are you ok? Did you get the shooter?"

"Emma, are you ok?" Steve completely ignored her questions. Emma nodded until she remembered that he couldn't see her; her hands were still shaking as she cleared her throat and forced the words to come out.

"Yes. Yeah, I'm ok. Did you find the shooter?" she asked.

"No. Disappeared. I'm on my way to the hospital."

"Ok. I'll find you when I'm there."

"Ok. Be careful, Emma." The tone of his voice told Emma that this wasn't a simple, good-natured well-meant wish—this was an order.

"I will," she said softly. "You be careful, too."

She hung up the phone and put it back in her pocket. Once it was safe and secure again, she clasped her hands together and hoped that if she squeezed them together hard enough, the shaking would stop.

* * *

Emma stood in the room that allowed her to look in on the operation Fury was undergoing. She was by herself, and usually she was ok with being by herself, but right now she didn't want to be. For the millionth time that night, she glanced down at her hands—they were still shaking the slightest bit, but they were now clean from Fury's blood. And yet, as she looked at them, she couldn't stop picturing them covered in blood. She didn't know why this was affecting her so strongly. She'd done stuff like that before, and she didn't even blink at blood anymore, but her brain wouldn't stop playing tricks on her, letting her mind think that Fury's blood was still hot and sticky on her hands.

"Emma." Steve's voice was behind her, and she turned over her shoulder. In a second, she was wrapped up in his arms, and he was holding her tight and close. "Oh, God. You're sure you're ok."

"Yes. But Steve…Steve, it's Director Fury." Emma looked up at him with watery eyes, and he looked over towards the glass panel. "I don't...I don't know…"

"Jesus," Steve breathed. He crossed towards the glass, one arm still holding her close against him, and his blue eyes took in the sight of everything that was happening. He could see that Fury was on a ventilator, and there was lots of blood. He didn't know as much about medical things as Emma did, but he knew when something didn't look good, and that sure as hell did not look good. "Grace is on her way. So's Natasha."

"Ok," Emma replied. As much as she didn't really care too much for obnoxious PDA, she snuggled in closer to Steve and rested her head on his shoulder. They simply stood there for a long time, watching. They didn't speak. They just watched.

Suddenly, Agent Grace Marks was beside Steve. "How is he?"

"Not good," Steve replied. Grace leaned forward to look at Emma.

"How is he?" she repeated.

"Not good at all," Emma confirmed. The agent's face was blank and expressionless, but her eyes were fierce and furious. Grace put her hands on the ledge and leaned against it.

"Fuck," she whispered. "_Fuck_."

"Grace—" Steve started to say, but she vehemently shook her head and cut him off.

"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for him." Her voice was so quiet Emma wasn't sure she'd even heard it at all. "I would be fucked up somewhere barely able to function."

Right on cue, Natasha burst through the door way and rushed over to the glass, barely taking the time to notice Grace, Steve, or Natasha.

"Is he going to make it?" She was always to the point. Steve glanced down at Emma—this was more her area of expertise.

Emma cleared her throat and pressed in closer to Steve. "I don't know."

"Tell me about the shooter," Natasha demanded in a flat monotone.

"He's fast. Strong. Had a metal arm," Steve said. Emma's head jerked up to look at him. Agent Maria Hill, quiet as ever, made her appearance, as well. Emma looked around at all of the SHIELD agents surrounding her, and she realized that she'd never felt more inadequate or separated from a group of people before.

"Ballistics," Grace asked.

"Three slugs. No rifle, completely untraceable," Hill replied.

"Soviet-made." Natasha's voice was quiet, almost horrified.

Hill looked towards her in surprise. "Yeah."

Suddenly, something started happening in the operating room. Emma couldn't hear what they were shouting, but she could see monitors going off like crazy, and the doctors suddenly picked up their pace, moving quickly and frantically. She felt Steve tense beside her, and she had to force her brain to stay focused on the vision in front of her and not the vision of her blood-soaked hands that threatened to come to the front of her mind again.

"Don't do this to me, Nick," Natasha whispered. Emma looked over at the redheaded assassin and saw the most emotion on Natasha's face than she'd ever seen from the woman before. She glanced over at Grace to see how Grace was handling it, but Grace still wore her blank, empty expression. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, and she was staring straight ahead, almost unseeingly.

When Emma looked back into the operating room, the doctors were shouting, "Clear!" and her body jerked when Nick's did. She wanted to look away, but she couldn't—in that moment, she realized just how true that saying about something being like a train wreck because you wanted to look away but couldn't was. Her mouth was dry, and her eyes couldn't stop looking.

Natasha started murmuring something she couldn't hear; Emma looked at the faces of the doctors working on Fury, and that was when she knew. She knew by the resigned looks in their distant eyes that they were done. They'd done everything they could. Steve broke away from her and walked out in the hall. Beside her, Natasha was making quiet but heavy breathing sounds that signaled she was trying hard not to cry. Emma wanted to stick around, particularly for Grace since Grace was her friend, but after she looked at Grace and saw the agent's still stony, no nonsense expression, she knew there was nothing she could do. She turned and walked out into the hall after Steve.

She caught the back of his head ducking into another room; carefully, she crossed towards it and peeked her head in. "Steve? Baby?"

He turned at the sound of her voice and looked at her—he was doing that thing where he was trying to be strong for everyone else, and she could see it in his face. She lingered in the doorway, not sure if she should go to him or wait for him to come to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught his hand moving around the flash drive; seeing it jogged her memory.

"Neighbor Kate asked what happened," she said. Steve's face became worried.

"What'd you say?" he asked.

"I told her I didn't know," she said. She crossed farther into the room, casting a watchful glance over her shoulder. "Steve, what the hell's going on?"

"What happened before I got there?" he asked.

"Uh, I…I'd just come back from Bed, Bath, & Beyond, and when I walked through the door, he was sitting there. He asked me not to turn on any of the lights because his head hurt, and I saw that he was injured. Then he typed up on his phone to stay quiet and to sit down where I'd be safe from the windows," she said as she tried to stretch her memory back that far. Even though it'd happened just hours ago, it felt as though it'd happened years before.

"Did he say anything else?" Steve asked.

Emma shook her head. "No. What did he mean about not trusting anyone? Steve…what's happening?"

"Em, I don't know," Steve honestly replied. "But I'm going to find out."

"Steve, this is a lot," Emma said firmly. "This is_ a lot _a lot."

"I know," Steve murmured. Without any warning, he gently took hold of her face and tilted her head back up to look at him. "Emma, I need you to promise me that you're going to stay as far removed from this as possible."

"Steve," Emma said with a confused frown. "I don't want to be a part of whatever it is that's happening. But I am. It got dragged into our house, Steve. _Our house_. I walked into our home, and Director Fury was sitting there all cut up and bloody."

"Sweetheart, you need to get out of here," Steve said quietly. "Go to Connecticut. Spend time with your family. Just get out of D.C. It's not safe for you."

"No." Emma shook her head, her frown deepening even more. "No. Not without you."

Steve thought back to the last time he'd heard those words, and Bucky's face flashed through his mind. "Emma, I'm not playing around with you."

"And I'm not playing around with _you_," she argued, a hint of anger starting to creep into her voice. "If you're staying, so am I. I'm not going to go run off to Connecticut to have fun with my family while you stay here and take this on by yourself."

"It's not safe for you to stay. You need to be ok." Steve paused, and he swallowed. "_I _need you to be ok."

"You might be Captain America, but you sure as hell can't give me orders," Emma replied. "I'm not as fragile as you think I am."

"I'm not ordering you to leave—I'm asking you," Steve said. "Please. Honey, if something happens to you—"

"It won't." Emma interrupted him, and she shook her head. He opened his mouth to protest, but she shook her head again. "Steve. No."

He pressed his lips together in a firm, thin line as he understood that she was serious. Sighing, he released his hands from her face and looked away. "Just be careful. Be very careful."

"I will," she said softly. She took a step back towards the door and leaned her head in the direction she was going. "Come on. We need to go back."

"Did he—" Steve stopped speaking when Emma nodded, her eyes filling with tears.

"Yeah," she said softly. "They were…they were unhooking from…"

She covered her mouth with her hand to stifle her tears. Steve stepped forward and wrapped her up against him. He held her and felt her shaking as he tried to soothe her however he could.

"I'm sorry." She quickly pulled back and wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," Steve murmured with a confused frown on his face.

"I just…I don't know. I can't do that out there with—with the three stone-faced SHIELD agents." She glanced back towards the door and wiped her face. Steve noticed her hands trembling and how she slid them down the backs of her legs to keep him from seeing.

Quietly, they walked out into the hall and tried to face the undeniable together.


	4. Attack

**Shoutouts to Lilybear3121, thecruelworldwelivein, DessieDawn, RL, KD Skywalker, bellapaige88, and stuffoflegends for reviewing!**

**Ok, some housekeeping. An update on my situation if you don't read my Black Widow/Hawkeye origin story _Girl, Compromised_ and haven't seen my Author's Note explaining it in my most recent chapter: I only get WiFi for about two hours a day, and that's pushing it. I'll be updating that one more frequently since I don't need WiFi for it, but these updates will be slower since I _do _need WiFi to get the exact dialogue/motions/emotions of the characters. Please just bear with me, y'all! I promise I'm still writing, but it'll be slow. I'll probably only be able to update this about once a week, and even that's being a bit generous. Please just be patient and know that I'm still working on it!**

**I'm having the absolute worst time at this camp I'm working at, and I have another eight weeks to go. Reviews definitely cheer me up ;)**

**As always, let me know what you think. This chapter is back to being about normal length again. There's not much dialogue in the second half. I'm also trying to focus on what Emma does throughout _Winter Soldier_ because we all know what Steve does, and I don't want to just retell the movie but in more flowery language. Please, please, please leave your opinions. I love them and especially need them while I'm struggling here at camp.**

**Enjoy! =)**

* * *

Chapter 4

Emma was used to Grace Marks's blank, empty expressions, but she was particularly unnerved by the extra-stony look on the amber-eyed agent's face as she stood beside Steve off to the side in the morgue and watched her react to Nick Fury's death. Even though Emma hadn't wanted to cry in front of Hill, Natasha, and Grace, she found that she was still wiping her eyes. She didn't weep openly, but every now and then, she'd lift her hand to eliminate any evidence that she'd been crying.

"We need to take him," Hill said quietly. Natasha had been openly grieving for the past few minutes, the display of emotion very rare from the agent. However, Grace had taken the exact opposite approach. Instead of showing any hint of sadness or emotion, she'd completely locked herself off from everyone around her.

Steve quietly crossed towards the redheaded assassin. "Natasha."

Tender but brief, as Natasha Romanoff usually was whenever she allowed herself to be, she reached out and touched Nick Fury's forehead before lowering her hand down to her side. Without looking at anyone in the room, Natasha turned on her heel and stalked out of the room and down the hallway. A look of grief and frustration passed over Steve's face, and he ran out after her. Emma stayed in the room with both Grace and Maria, unsure of what to do. She knew what she _wanted _to do, but she also knew it wasn't what she _needed _to do.

Folding her arms over her chest, she could feel herself starting to shut down. She tried to steady her breathing and numb the ache that was starting to rise deep in her chest. She couldn't say that she'd known Nick Fury very well at all; truthfully, she'd only met him a handful of times, and most of the times she'd seen him had been about Steve. However, that didn't mean she didn't feel the director's loss and how it impacted some of the people who were closest to her.

Quietly, she turned and walked out into the hall after Steve, leaving a stony Grace and tearful Maria behind her. It didn't take her long to find Steve—he was right there outside the door. She quietly walked up to him and stood next to him. He looked down at her, his face contorted in a slight frown.

"We need to get you out of here," he said in a low, worried voice. Emma glanced up sharply at him.

"Steve—"

"No, you need to go rest up," Steve said. "It's really late."

"You don't have to monitor me," Emma said with a sigh as she tiredly ran her hand over her face. "I'm a grown woman."

"Emma." Steve's voice was firm, and she looked up at him again. His face was soft and borderline pleading. "Please. Rest up. I need to go report in at HQ."

Emma frowned. "What? Steve, you said it yourself—it's late. You need rest just as much as I do."

"Not quite." Steve's blue eyes turned downwards towards the floor. "There are a lot of questions they need to ask me. They'll probably call you in at some point, too. There's something…off with this. Please. Go home. Get some sleep. I'll call you when I can come home."

Emma suddenly felt tears starting to fill her eyes again, and she blinked hard several times in an effort to hold them back. At her silence, Steve looked up to gauge her reaction, and concern instantly flooded his face as he recognized the look of his girlfriend trying not to cry.

"Emma…"

"I can't," she said shakily. "There's…there's a lot of blood, and—and I don't want to…it's just—"

"Emma." Steve cut her off, and he quickly ran a hand over her hair and down the side of her face. "Get a hotel room for the night. Text me where you are, and I'll come there when I'm done. Ok? Don't try to take on…don't go home until I'm with you." She looked at him as if she were about to protest, but he shook his head once. "You don't have to do this alone. Remember how you told me that? Well, remember that it's true for you, too."

She paused, and she pressed her lips together as she swallowed and nodded tightly. "Ok."

"I love you. Be careful. Be so, so careful." Steve ducked his head down to kiss her on the lips chastely, and he wrapped her in a firm but quick hug. "I'll see you later. Get some sleep."

"I love you, too. Stay safe." Emma pulled back from Steve and forced herself to smile one last time before she turned over her shoulder and started walking away. She knew that Steve was right when he said that SHIELD would probably want to talk to her sometime soon, and sometime soon for SHIELD usually meant within the next 12 hours; Steve hadn't said it, but she'd understood that she wasn't to breathe a word of anything that had happened to them. She was to deny knowing why Fury had shown up at their apartment and why he'd given Steve the flash drive. Truthfully, she probably wasn't even supposed to tell them that Steve even had the flash drive.

As she walked down the hall, she missed her Super Soldier turn towards the vending machine with newfound interest, the flash drive being the exact thing on his mind.

* * *

Emma checked into the nearest hotel and texted the address to Steve before falling into bed. Normally, she turned the lights off right before she got into bed, but tonight she didn't turn the lights off. She left them on. She left them on and didn't close her eyes because she was terrified out of her wits. Emma thought she'd experienced quite a lot of things in her life that most people didn't. She'd survived a plane crash, a gas explosion, the Battle of New York, and a car crash intended to kill her.

However, she couldn't shake the fear that had accompanied her since she'd come back from Bed, Bath, & Beyond to find Nick Fury in the apartment. Everything she'd told Steve had been true—the director had been sitting there in the chair, bloodied and bruised, and he'd refused any help. He'd told her to sit on the floor out of sight, and she'd done so. Being the girlfriend of America's most famous soldier, she knew better than to ask any questions, so she'd kept her mouth shut, even though her first instinct had been to bombard the man with questions.

She hadn't felt so scared in a long time. If ever. She remembered that she'd been scared during the Battle of New York, but she'd been experiencing more of an adrenaline rush than anything—all that had been on her mind had been saving people. Get to them, bandage them up, and move on. She'd done that over and over, and when the battle had ended, she'd done the same to the Avengers. It wasn't until she and Steve had gone to bed in Tony's tower that night that the fear had really hit her.

Even so, that fear was nothing compared to what she felt now. Whatever was going on with Director Fury and Steve had followed them to the home she and Steve shared. Steve's missions were no longer a classified file he wasn't allowed to tell her—they were right in her face, and she had no choice than to understand that and try to figure out how the hell she was going to deal with it.

Her hands were still shaking, and she grasped them together beneath the covers. The bed was warm and comfortable, and the lights weren't terribly bright, but she didn't feel safe at all. She'd locked the door as soon as she'd shut it behind her, even putting on the deadbolt, and she'd closed the curtains. No matter what she did, she knew that she couldn't shake this crippling sense of fear that threatened to overtake her.

Emma didn't like to think she depended on Steve because she didn't—she was proud of the fact that she was independent and didn't rely on him to bring her all of her happiness, but goddammit, did she need him then. She needed him there with her more than she ever had, and he couldn't even be there because his duty as Captain America, superhero came before his duty as Steve Rogers, boyfriend.

* * *

Steve had spent the entire early hours of the morning processing back in and getting debriefed on the whole situation—he'd sat through meetings and listened to strategies and theories and panicked assumptions of what had happened. He'd even sat through some people questioning him and staring suspiciously at him when he'd answered in as truthful as he could muster that he didn't know what was going on.

As he walked down the hall towards Alexander Pierce's office, he caught sight of Kate, the blonde nurse from across the hall. Though now, technically, she was no longer Kate, the blonde nurse from across the hall because she was Agent 13, the blonde agent of SHIELD. She was talking with Pierce, and Steve saw her nod as she started to turn away. She glanced up and paused for a half-second when she saw him.

"Captain Rogers," she quietly and professionally greeted.

"Neighbor," Steve tersely replied, missing her turn her head to look back at him as he passed her and walked towards Pierce.

"Ah, Captain," Pierce said, and he held his hand out as he smiled pleasantly at the Super Soldier. "I'm Alexander Pierce."

Steve put his hand out and shook Pierce's hand. "Sir. It's an honor."

"The honor's mine, Captain. My father served in the 101st. Come on in." Pierce gestured in towards his office with a nod of his head, and Steve obeyed, cautiously crossing in while he wondered why the man wanted to see him; well, he knew why Pierce wanted to see him, but he wanted to know _why_. He watched Pierce cross over to his desk and lift a photograph off his desk before handing it over to Steve. "That photo was taken five years after Nick and I met. When I was at State Department in Bogota. ELN rebels took the Embassy, and Security got _me_ out, but the rebels took hostages. Nick was Deputy Chief of the SHIELD station there, and he comes to me with a plan. He wants to storm the building through the sewers, and I said no—we'll negotiate. Turned out the ELN didn't negotiate, so they put out a kill order. They stormed the basement, what do they find—they find it empty. Nick had ignored my direct order and carried out an unauthorized military operation on foreign soil. And saved the lives of a dozen political officers. Including my daughter."

"So you gave him a promotion," Steve replied, not even bothering to hide the distaste in his voice as he glanced up at Pierce.

"I've never had any cause to regret it." The warning was clear in Pierce's eyes, but Steve didn't really give a shit at this point. Pierce paused. "Captain, why was Nick in your apartment last night?"

"I don't know," Steve answered, and he looked away from the man.

"You know it was bugged?" Pierce asked.

"I did. Because Nick told me," Steve tersely answered.

"He tell you he was the one who bugged it?" Pierce countered. Steve paused—now this was news. He wished he hadn't been so caught off guard because he would have liked to have acted as if he'd known, but it was too late. The surprise was evident in the Army captain's light blue eyes as he stared at Pierce in mild disbelief.

"I want you to see something." Pierce leaned forward and fiddled around with something that controlled the holoboard in his office. Steve watched as a video clip came up; frowning, he watched the familiar face of George Batroc come up on the screen. Batroc appeared to be in a prison cell being interrogated.

"Is that live?" Steve asked.

"They picked him up last night at a not-so-safehouse in Algiers," Pierce replied. His eyes flicked over to Steve's face to watch his reaction.

"Are you saying he's a suspect?" Steve asked. "Assassination isn't Batroc's lot."

"No, no, no—it's more complicated than that," Pierce said. "Batroc was hired anonymously to attack _The Marion Star_, and he was contacted by email and paid by wire transfers. And then the money was run through _17 _fictitious accounts—the last one going to a holder company that was registered to a Jacob Beech."

"Am I supposed to know who that is?" Steve asked, his dry sass showing through the way it always did whenever he was bored of the game and just wanted solid, straight answers. Pierce held some papers out to him, and he took them, looking down at them and skimming over them.

"Not likely. Beech died six years ago. His last address was 1435 Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Nick, his mother lived at 1437," Pierce said. Steve lifted the front page on the file to look at the next page, and he paused, looking up at Pierce with disbelief.

"Are you saying _Fury _hired the pirates?" he asked. He lowered the front page and looked evenly at Pierce. "Why?"

"Well, the prevailing theory—was that the hijacking was a cover for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence," Pierce said seriously. "Sale went sour, and that led to Nick's death."

Steve was quiet for a few moments as he tried to process everything this strange old man was telling him. Finally, he looked up and stared defiantly at Pierce. "If you really knew Nick Fury, you'd know that's not true."

"Why do you think we're talking?" Pierce asked, his tone softer this time. He stood up and crossed over towards the window that overlooked the city of D.C. Steve carefully stood up, his eyes never leaving Pierce as he moved behind him. "See, I took a seat on the Council not because I _wanted _to but because Nick _asked _me to. Because we were both realists. We knew that despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, that to build a really better world, sometimes means having to tear the old one down." Pierce turned to look at Steve. "And that makes enemies. Those people that call you dirty because you stick your hands in the mud to try and build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today? Makes me _really_, really angry." Pierce paused and took a breath. "Captain, you were the last one to see Nick alive—I don't think that's an accident. And I don't think you do, either. So I'm going to ask again. Why was he there?"

They were at a stalemate, and they both knew it. Steve kept his gaze hard and level, distrusting as he replied. "He told me not to trust anyone."

"I wonder…if that included him," Pierce suggested. Anger coursed through Steve's blood, but he kept his face devoid of just how angry he felt; if he were going to allow any emotion at all to come over his face, it would be defiance. He was damn good at showing defiance, and he wasn't afraid to show it now.

"I'm sorry," Steve said emotionlessly. "Those were his last words." A pause passed between them. "Excuse me."

He turned over his shoulder and started to walk away, lifting up his shield from where he'd set it down and putting it back in place on his back, when Pierce spoke again. "Captain. Somebody murdered my friend, and I'm going to find out why." Steve stopped, looking behind him to meet Pierce's eyes. "Anyone gets in my way, they're going to regret it." Pierce paused. "Anyone."

Steve knew exactly what Pierce was implying, and again, he didn't give a shit. "Understood."

As he turned to leave again, Pierce spoke one last time. "Oh, by the way, Captain, how's that girlfriend of yours? Emma, am I right?"

Steve froze. Pierce had just crossed a line he would regret crossing. "She's fine. Thank you for asking."

"Good. I'm glad. It would've been awful if anything had happened to her." Pierce's voice dripped with too much sweetness, and Steve felt his blood run cold. He thought about replying, but he didn't. He wouldn't give Pierce the satisfaction of knowing that he'd gotten to him. So he put one foot in front of the other and walked out towards the elevator. He shouldn't have been surprised that Pierce had shot so low as to bring Emma up—it was exactly the kind of threat that people made when they wanted to show they were serious.

He thought back to the address he had in a text message from Emma. She'd gone to a hotel just like she'd said she would, and he hadn't talked to her since, but now he wanted to tell her to leave. However, that would be too obvious, and he couldn't afford any fuck ups with Pierce watching him, and he was smart enough to know that Pierce was watching him closely.

The elevator slid open, and Steve walked inside, straight to the back. He leaned against the metal railing and kept his body facing out towards the window. "Operations Control."

"Confirmed," the elevator voice spoke back. Right as the door began to shut, a hand quickly shot into the open space, and he glanced back to see Rumlow and several other STRIKE team members entering the elevator. Rumlow was giving some order that was most likely a bullshit order, and he looked up, noticing Steve as he gave his order to the elevator.

"Forensics," Rumlow announced. He looked over at Steve. "Cap."

"Rumlow," Steve returned, and he turned his body to face his teammate. The elevator slid shut and started to move down. Steve looked up at the ceiling as he patiently waited, still worrying about Emma and wondering what to do. Rumlow turned towards Steve and started talking to him about something to do with fibers on the roof and whether Steve wanted him to get the team together. "No, let's wait and see what it is first."

"Right," Rumlow replied. Steve glanced down at Rumlow's hand, noticing how it was resting too casually on his gun. Rumlow never put his hand on his gun like that unless he was about to shoot. Instantly, Steve's guard came up, and he frowned slightly in confusion and suspicion as his blue eyes studied the back of his teammate's head. The elevator slid to another floor and opened, letting on a second group of men.

"Excuse me," one of them said to Steve as he made sure that he secured his place on the small elevator. Steve backed up to the back of the elevator, all the while staring at this man who'd spoken to him. Something didn't feel right, and he was feeling that increasing pressure of danger creeping in on him with each passing second.

"Sorry about what happened with Fury," Rumlow said suddenly, tilting his head back in Steve's direction. "Messed up what happened to him."

"Thank you," Steve replied, an edge to his voice.

"Awful that Em had to see that, too. I can imagine that that really upset her," Rumlow said. Steve's body tensed at hearing Rumlow say Emma's nickname as if he knew her personally—he knew for a fact that Rumlow had never met Emma; if he hadn't known before that he needed to get Emma to safety, he knew it all too acutely now.

"She's strong," he answered, the edge still present. As silence filled the elevator, the quiet voices of murmuring SHIELD agents being the only thing to break the silence, he looked over to his left. Running down the temple of the man who'd pushed beside Steve was a bead of sweat. Despite the number of people in the small, confined space, the temperature wasn't even hot. Sweat usually meant that people were nervous—why was this guy nervous if something weren't going on? The elevator stopped at yet another floor and slid open to reveal yet another group of men who boarded the already crowded elevator.

"Records," one of them ordered.

"Confirmed," the elevator voice replied. Steve looked over his shoulder at the growing number of men around him—this was far too coincidental. The elevator was never this full, and these were all Special Ops men, men who were trained to take on dangerous, physical missions that required intense skill when fighting. He knew all of these agents on some level, whether they were familiar faces in passing or acquaintances whose first names he knew. He knew all of them, and in that moment, he realized that they were about to kill him. In fact, he realized that he'd never known these men at all.

The elevator doors closed, and then the familiar jolt signaled that they were moving. Steve looked up at the screen that displayed the floors they were passing, and he made his decision. "Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?"

There was a pause, a long agonizing pause that made Steve feel as though another 70 years had passed by. And then the sound of a taser firing up broke the tense, dangerous silence. Men leaped forward and pinned him to the wall just as another leaned forward and jammed the elevator stop button so that no one could interrupt them. Jolts of electricity ran through Steve as the taser made its mark right on his torso.

As two men leapt towards him, Steve realized that they were trying to magnet-handcuff him to the walls of the elevator to make this easier. Using all the strength he could muster, he pushed and pushed against the force that threatened to pin him down and leave him vulnerable. He was going to be goddamned if he would let these guys take him without a fight. Moving downward, he pulled his arm out of the force of the magnet and began kicking and punching, effectively pushing several SHIELD agents off him at a time.

He managed to get the guy behind him holding him in a headlock off of him, and he was preparing to get Rumlow when Rumlow launched one of the magnet-handcuffs at him and pinned him to the wall. Furious, Steve turned and tried to pull it off, but Rumlow came straight at him with one of the tasers. Turning around, Steve began to fight him off—this was definitely much harder with one arm pinned down to hold him in place. However, he was better than Rumlow, and he knew it.

Until Rumlow made contact with the taser on Steve's back. Steve clenched his eyes and gritted his teeth, a low, gruff cry of pain releasing from his mouth as the electricity ran through him and rendered him temporarily incapacitated. He needed to fight this—he needed to get the hell out of here, and he forced himself to push against the pain and the jolts to elbow Rumlow in the face just in time to punch out another agent who was coming for him.

Two more advanced, and he grabbed their tasers, tasing both of them and sending them to the floor unconscious. As much as get tased sucked, he was thankful for his Serum; the Serum made it so that he could deal with such a high dosage of electricity without passing out from it. Once he kicked the last agent who was coming for him off to the side, he lifted his legs up to the wall and pushed, pulling his wrist away from the wall to free himself. He grunted and pulled as hard as he could, and within seconds, he was free and flipping backwards to land on the ground and elbow two more agents who had started advancing on him.

He knocked out the last agent with a forceful uppercut, and he turned towards Rumlow, who was standing in front of him with two tasers in his hands. Rumlow half-opened his palms, eyeing Steve the way he would a wild animal.

"Whoa, big guy," he breathed. "I just want you to know, Cap…this isn't personal!"

He lunged towards Steve with one taser over his head, and the other aimed towards Steve's torso. Steve reached up and grabbed Rumlow's overhead hand to stop him, but he just missed catching the torso shot—the taser made its mark, and he gritted his teeth again to fight off the effects of the electricity. Once he pushed Rumlow's hand away from his torso, Rumlow brought the other one down to his torso, getting him again.

Steve pushed his hands out towards Rumlow and grabbed him, swinging him up into the ceiling of the elevator and smashing him hard against the lights, breaking them and leaving Rumlow unconscious.

"It kind of feels personal," he growled to his unconscious former teammate. He saw his shield lying on the floor, and he stomped on the edge of it to flip it up into position. He used the edge of his shield to snap off the last of the magnet-handcuffs, his blood still pounding as he seethed. He reached forward and pressed the Start button on the elevator, but when the doors slid open, he saw an armed team of men ready to attack.

"Drop the shield! Put your hands in the air!" someone shouted. Without waiting a second, Steve turned and snapped the cords of the elevator, and he went plummeting down. He ducked down and got into a safe, defensive position as the elevator continued to soar downwards. His stomach rose, and he swallowed as the elevator came to an abrupt halt. When he looked up, he saw that he was in between floors; the door was right in front of him and slightly above. He reached up and used half his strength to pull the doors open, only to find that there were armed men racing down the hall towards him. Steve wasted no time in closing the doors, frantically looking around for a way out.

And then it hit him. If they were coming for him this quickly, they would be going for Emma.

"Open up, Rogers! Get that door open!" Shouts came from the outdoors. Steve didn't feel afraid because of what these guys were about to do to him—he was afraid of what they would do to Emma. Pierce and Rumlow's offhand statements about her now made sense, and his heart leapt up into his throat.

"Rogers!" More shouts came. Steve looked out the window, and he realized that this was his only way out. He took a few steps back and took a deep breath—this was it. This was it, and he hoped to God that he made it through this fall. He turned around and ran a few steps for momentum. He brought his shield up and went crashing through the glass wall of the elevator, careening out the side and down towards the glass ceiling that covered the main entrance of HQ.

He was in free fall, his arms spread, and it seemed like another eternity to him. He closed his eyes so he didn't see everything passing him as he fell. He was falling, simply falling. He curled his body into a protective position behind his shield and continued to plummet down; he felt his shield hit the glass ceiling, and then he was through. He could hear screams and shouts, the sound of glass hitting the floor, and then he hit the ground.

All the oxygen was punched out of his lungs—he couldn't think, and he couldn't breathe, but he remembered the men in the elevator, and he made his body move. He had to get out of there; he had to get to Emma. Letting out a tight breath of pain, he winced and slowly uncurled himself to push himself into a standing position before running off. He lifted his commlink to his mouth.

"Call Emma," he ordered breathlessly as he ran. The phone rang once, and then Emma answered.

"Steve?" Her voice was tense, but it didn't sound panicked, so that was a good sign. He closed his eyes for a half-second in relief.

"Emma, get out of there," he said quickly, his voice laced with exhaustion and pain though still authoritative. "You need to get the hell out of there as fast and as quietly as you can."

"Steve, what's going on?" Emma's voice became panicked. "What's happening?"

"SHIELD's after me, and they'll be after you. They most likely have my phone bugged, so they know where you are. _Get the hell out_!" he shouted.

"Ok. Ok, I'll—I'll call you, or—"

"No. You can't do that. They'll be tracking you just as much as they are me. Go somewhere safe, and keep your head down," Steve ordered. He looked over his shoulder and picked up his pace. The garage. He needed to get to the garage.

"Steve, what am I supposed to—what do I—"

"_Emma_," Steve snapped. "Baby, you've got to leave. Now."

"Ok. Ok. Ok, I love you. I love you so much. Please be safe, Steve. I need you to be ok."

"I love you. I'll be ok. I love you, Emma." Steve quickly hung up so he didn't have to hear her pain. He couldn't take hearing the panic in her voice; besides, he knew the longer she stayed on with him, the less time she would have to escape. As he continued to run to the garage, he couldn't help thinking that he was doing a goddamn shitty job at keeping Emma safe.

* * *

Emma's hands were shaking as she quickly shoved her phone into her pocket. She'd managed to get out of bed to shower, but as soon as she'd finished, she'd gotten back in so she could survey her room and the safety of it. It struck her as typical that as soon as she would get her hands to be somewhat still, she would get a call that would get her going again. She felt nausea rise up in her stomach, and she had to literally force herself to stay calm.

She caught sight of her small shoulder bag she always carried around with her on the weekends, and she grabbed it. Inside it she had her wallet, car keys, and basically everything she needed. She slid it over her shoulder and started towards the door and into the hall. She thought about taking the elevator, but if SHIELD were really coming for her, they might take the elevator. Suddenly, she was faced with the horror of making a decision she didn't feel educated enough to make. What if they took the elevator? What if they took the stairs because they thought she'd take the stairs? What if they took the backstairs to trap her? What if they sent people up all three ways? There were all these options, and she had no idea what the hell to do—she didn't have any training in mission ops the way Steve did.

However, she knew that the longer she stood there, the longer she was wasting time and the quicker SHIELD could catch her. She took her chances and ran to the main stairs, her heart thumping all the while.

As fast as she could, she ran down the stairs and down into the lobby. That was when she saw them. Even if she hadn't had any kind of exposure to SHIELD agents, she would have known that these men weren't the kind of people to fuck with; they were all in black, and they were armed, and they looked like they had a mission on their minds. Emma froze, and then she looked about her.

Off to her right was a laundry room, and she quickly ducked inside. She heard boots traipsing down the hall, the familiar shake and rattle of loaded weapons sounding through her ears as they passed the door to the room. She closed her eyes and tried to keep herself from shaking—how the hell was she supposed to survive this without Steve? She had no idea how to handle herself in this kind of situation; after all, she was a nurse. She was supposed to take care of wounded, sick agents, not hide from the agents who were apparently out to get her.

The sound of running was gone, and she decided to chance a peek. Slowly, she crept to the door and looked out through the glass window. All she saw was an empty hallway with blue, flowered carpet. It was a shame that all of this was happening, she thought in the back of her mind—it really was a nice hotel. Silently, she opened the door and peeked out. No one with a gun came at her, and she didn't see anyone in black with a lethal weapon, so she swallowed her sick feelings down, and she started to walk as fast as she could without looking suspicious so that she was out of there.

She was outside, and she didn't know what to do now. She knew that she needed to get away—very far away. But how far away was she willing to go without Steve? She swallowed hard as she thought about him. He'd sounded so serious and winded on the phone, as if he'd been fighting. She glanced around her to find any kind of alley she could duck down, and she did. She kept her head down low, and she started walking.

Thankfully, she knew this area of D.C. well enough to know that this alley would take her out to some side roads, and then the side roads would lead her to a Metro station. She wasn't sure if SHIELD would be able to track her there, but she figured she had enough of a head start on them to set a decent amount of distance between them before they figured it out.

Emma moved down the streets as subtly though swiftly as she could, all the while trying to fight the overwhelming paranoia that made her breath hitch every few inhales. Her mind was racing with fear and anxiety all at the same time—half of her was afraid for herself, and the other half was afraid for Steve. Steve. Oh, God, what had he gotten himself into?

Tears threatened to fill her eyes, but she blinked hard and kept her quick pace up as she caught sight of the large M sign that signified a Metro entrance was right beside it. She couldn't cry on the streets like this. Chancing a glance over her shoulder, she saw nothing suspicious behind her, and she started towards one of the vendors right beside the M. Emma smiled with how coincidental and convenient it was, a rush of relief flashing over her.

Quietly, she picked out a Washington D.C. hat and slammed down cash on the counter, trying to look patient as she waited for change. Once the cashier handed it back to her, she grabbed the baseball cap, slapped it on her head, and started down into the tunnels of the Metro. She kept her hat pulled down low, and she removed her cell phone from her pocket and began to scroll through it to make it look like she was busy with her technology.

**Steve Rogers SHIELD 2014, **she Googled. Within seconds, there were results and headlines popping up, the first one having been published only 10 minutes ago.

**Captain America: Wanted**

**Manhunt for Captain America**

**Captain America Evades SHIELD**

Emma swallowed again and clicked on the first headline. She quickly glanced up to see which pay machine was available, and she started towards the nearest one. She was smart enough in spy affairs to know that she couldn't pay with a credit card, so she pulled cash out, her phone still in her hand as she paid for a one-way ticket to take her North towards Maryland, where she could transfer from the Metro to the Marc.

She got her ticket, and she looked down at her phone and began to read the article. Words leapt out from the screen: wanted, dangerous, criminal, Nick Fury's death. Her eyes began to swim, and she realized that Steve probably had no more idea what was happening than she did; she rode the escalator down into the belly of the Metro and walked discreetly to wait for the train that would take her out of there without Steve or any way to contact him.

Things were only getting more complicated, and for the millionth time in the past 24 hours, she wondered what the hell she was supposed to do. Obviously, something serious was going on—something _really_ serious if SHIELD were going to send out agents to kill her or collect her or whatever it was they were planning on doing with her. She'd thought that Steve would be right when he'd told her that they'd probably take her in for questioning, but that team of men in black with loaded militarized weapons hadn't looked like the kind of people who just calmly wanted to ask her a few questions. She might not have known very much about how SHIELD worked or how their agents did things, but she knew that that was not what simple questioning looked like.

Self-consciously, she tugged on the brim of her hat and lowered it even more over her face. It was a dark grey hat, nice and inconspicuous. There were so many tourists in D.C. that she wasn't standing out at all. She never thought she would have been standing there in the Metro station of D.C. wondering if her hat made her blend in well enough. Her life had definitely changed, but it wasn't the kind of change that she welcomed.

As she tried to calmly breathe in and breathe out, she thought of Steve and panicked he'd sounded on the phone.

_Be ok, Steve_, she thought, her heart aching inside her chest, _Be ok. God, just be ok.__  
_


	5. Running

**Shoutouts to Lilybear3121, DessieDawn, thecruelworldwelivein, bellapaige88, stuffoflegends, and LilyHiddleston96 for reviewing!**

**Thank y'all again for your patience and continued support!**

**Literally, my days at camp suck and are absolutely terrible, so reading your reviews (whenever I have WiFi) absolutely make my day so much better. You guys are the sweetest, and your reviews make my day. Shoutouts to the new followers and all that jazz =) I'm so excited y'all like this little spin on _Winter Soldier!_**

**So in this chapter, we have some action and a brand new character from Emma's past that she turns to for help. Uh oh!**

**As always, please keep reviewing because they lift my spirits up and keep me inspired to use up as much WiFi time as I can!**

**Enjoy! =)**

* * *

Chapter 5

Sharon was having doubts. She looked up at the screen with Steve Rogers and Emma Carroll's faces on it, and she tried to shove her doubts down. Agent Sitwell was in the front of the room talking about how they needed to monitor the web, cameras, any sign possible of the two in order to bring them in. And she was having doubts.

She'd been living across the hall from Steve and Emma ever since they'd moved in, and she'd spent a lot of her time observing what they did and how they acted. They didn't strike her at all as terrorists or anyone who would have anything to do with Director Fury's death; granted, she couldn't say that she knew either of them particularly well, but she did think that she knew them well enough. Emma had always been so sweet and calming to her, full of bright, wide smiles and thank yous that lasted for days. And Steve was just…Steve Rogers. Everything Sharon had read about him had wound up being true. He was good and righteous, and truthfully, he was the best damn boyfriend in the world to Emma. Someone who went out of his way to bring back her favorite kind of coffee when the store was out wasn't the kind of person who would kill Nick Fury, Sharon thought.

"If someone tweets about these two, I want to know about it," Sitwell said intensely, his eyes glaring down all of the agents in the room around her. Sharon had her doubts, and so she took a risk.

"With all due respect, if SHIELD is conducting a manhunt for Captain America and his girlfriend, America's Sweetheart, we deserve to know why," she said out loud, her tone showing that she wasn't going to back down until she had an answer.

"Because they lied to us," a new voice said. Sharon recognized the voice of Alexander Pierce, and she turned to look in the direction his voice was coming from. Pierce crossed into the room, barely seeming to notice the agents' stares. "Captain Rogers has information regarding the death of Director Fury. He refused to share it. Emma will be the same way. She was there. As difficult as this is to accept, Captain America and America's Sweetheart are fugitives of SHIELD."

Sharon wondered what the hell she'd just gotten herself into.

* * *

Emma usually prided herself on her level head and smart decision making skills, but when she stood on a doorstep that belonged to a person she never thought she'd see again, she hated herself for having made this decision. Nervously, she shifted back and forth between her feet as she waited for the door to either be answered or not. Her heart pounded in her chest in an unpleasant way, and for a brief second, she thought she was going to vomit. She glanced over her shoulder, her baseball cap still pulled down over her eyes the way it had been since she'd left D.C., and just as she was starting to consider leaving, the door opened. She turned around at the sound, and she froze as soon as she saw the person she'd written out of her life years ago and had thought would stay that way.

"Emma?" The man in the doorway looked exactly the way she remembered him. He was still tall with dark brown hair and hazel eyes that were now filled with shock. She forced a smile at him, and she swallowed down the nausea that had been building up inside her.

"Hey," she said. They stood quietly staring at each other, the man looking nothing short of shocked and Emma looking embarrassed and uncomfortable. She looked down at the porch and then back up at him. "I'm kind of wanted by the federal government."

"So that's what you've been up to these past few years," the man said in an attempt at a joke. Neither of them laughed, nor did they try to. He cleared his throat. "Why are you here?"

"Since I'm wanted by the federal government—"

"—you needed a place to stay." The man cut her off before she could finish, and she shut her mouth, chastened.

"Colin…"

"I never would have pegged you for the type to show up after all these years to ask if I'd hide you from SHIELD, the top government agency in the U.S.," Colin remarked, his eyes never once leaving her face. Emma swallowed again, and she looked down. If she hadn't regretted this decision before, she regretted it now. "You're giving me that look."

"What?" Emma asked in a confused voice, and she tilted her head to the side.

"That look. The look you always get whenever you realize how far in over your heard you are," Colin said. Emma didn't know what to say, and she wound up just staring at him. Finally, he sighed, and he stepped back from the threshold just enough for her to come in. Emma jumped on the opportunity and walked through the door before he could change his mind; she didn't expect him to, but she wasn't sure if he were still the same Colin she remembered. Silently, she stepped into his house and stood in the hall as she waited for him to say something.

"You must really have felt like you didn't have anywhere else to go," Colin said. He glanced at Emma and saw her silence. Then he smiled. "Yeah, you wouldn't risk going home to your aunt and uncle or any of your cousins. They'd be in danger, and you couldn't do that to them."

Suddenly, Emma realized how this must look to him, and her eyes widened. "Colin, I didn't mean—"

"Hey, hey, I'm not trying to accuse you of anything. I was just stating a fact," he said sincerely. "I know they're the most important things in your life."

"I haven't…they haven't heard from me since SHIELD put out a price for my head two hours ago," she replied drily. Much to her surprise, Colin's smile spread into a genuine grin.

"You may have changed, but your sense of humor hasn't," he said. Sighing, he ran a hand through his unruly hair and took a few steps down the hall towards what looked like a living room. "So how'd you find me?"

"WhitePages," Emma answered. "It's not that hard to track people down these days with how crazy the Internet is."

"So how long until SHIELD figures out where you are?" Colin countered. Emma paused, her face stricken. Guilt passed over his face, and he sighed again. "Emma, what are you doing? What's going on? Why are you here?"

"I needed somewhere to go, and I didn't know where else to lay low," she said carefully.

"And you knew I wouldn't turn you away," Colin said quietly. Emma looked away, unable to answer the question.

"I was hoping," she said finally. Colin ran a hand over his face, and Emma saw a flash of pain flicker through his hazel eyes, but by the time his hand dropped to his side, that tiny glimpse of pain was gone.

"Well, you were right," he said, though his tone was unhappy. "Come on in."

He crossed in towards the living room, and Emma followed him. She wasn't sure what to make of him; he'd always had a hard sense of humor to read, but now that they had so much bad blood between them, she wasn't sure if he were serious or kidding with the things he was saying. Considering everything that had happened, it was a mixture of both, though 90% more serious than anything.

"You ever going to tell me what's going on? Why's your boyfriend wanted by the government? I thought he was the example of what we're supposed to look up to," Colin said as he walked towards a couch and sat down. Emma carefully crossed to the one across from his, and she lowered herself down into a seated position. She tried to figure out what kind of tone Colin was using in making his statement, but she couldn't detect any animosity.

"I don't know," she said honestly. "From what I've been able to read online, he's withholding information about Nick Fury's death."

"Is that true?" Colin asked, his face solemn. Emma's mind raced with what to do. She wasn't sure if she could trust Colin; after all, they hadn't spoken in years, but she very much needed someone there for her, and she wanted to tell him the truth.

"No," she lied. "It's not true."

"How hasn't SHIELD figured that out yet? Surely they have good reason to suspect him if they're going to issue a nation-wide hunt for him," Colin pointed out. "And you. Why are they after you?"

"They think I'm hiding something, too," she admitted. Colin's eyebrows shot up into his hairline, and he ran a hand over his face.

"Are you kidding me?" he asked. "Why the hell would they think that?"

"I was there when Fury died, so they think I'm helping Steve cover or whatever," Emma said. She didn't bother to tell him that she was, indeed, hiding information from SHIELD in order to protect both herself and Steve.

"Emma. What…I don't even know what to say. We haven't talked in six years. What the hell is going on?" Colin's hazel eyes were filled with frustration, and Emma knew that it was only a matter of time before he started really pushing. She sighed and put her face in her hands before wiping her hands down over her face and looking back up.

"It's a long story," she said. "I just need your help. I know that the last time we talked it wasn't…good—"

"Emma, the last time we talked, things were terrible," Colin interrupted. "I'm just confused about what's going on. I literally turned my TV on several hours ago only to see your face up there with Steve Rogers's, and I find out that the government is hunting you because of Nick Fury's death. This is a lot, Emma. This is a lot."

"I know," she said steadily. "I know. If you don't want to have any part of this, I can go. Easy as that."

"Emma…" Colin's voice trailed off, and he looked away. "I don't even know what to say."

"You don't have to help me. I don't expect you to." Emma scooted forward on the edge of the couch, and she tilted her head so that Colin was looking at her. "But I really need it."

Colin was quiet for a few moments, his eyes gazing directly at her with a hard stare. Finally, he spoke. "Did you see the footage of Captain America destroying that helicarrier?"

Emma frowned. "What? No."

Without hesitating, Colin reached forward to the coffee table to pick up his laptop, and he typed something in with super speed—Emma had forgotten how fast he was at typing. She'd always been amazed by his quick hands, always moving, never still for even a second. When he found what he wanted, he turned the laptop around and set it on the coffee table before he pressed Play.

What Emma saw next took her breath away. She'd seen Steve in action plenty of times; hell, she'd been in the Battle of New York with him, and she'd seen the footage from what he'd done during World War II and during the Battle of New York. She'd seen him fight hundreds of times, but damn, it never got old. Enthralled and terrified all at once, she watched the video from just a few hours ago that showed him single-handedly taking down a SHIELD-issued helicarrier. She held herself still as she watched him. Now she knew what he'd been up to since she'd gotten off the phone with him.

The video ended, and Colin shut the lid of the laptop. Emma looked at the young man's face and saw him intently studying her. Had it been anyone else staring at her, she might have felt uncomfortable, but Colin never stared at her with a look to make her uncomfortable. He always looked at her as though she were the most interesting thing he'd ever seen, and she was surprised to see him still looking at her the same way, especially considering after everything that had happened in the past with them.

"Is he good to you?" Colin asked. Emma closed her eyes and ran a hand over her face.

"Colin—"

"That's all I'm asking. I want you to be happy, Emma. I'm not trying to upset you or drag anything up," he said sincerely. Emma sighed, and she opened her eyes.

"Yes. He's very good to me," she said in a quiet voice that let him know she didn't want to talk about it. Colin nodded, his face unchanging. There was no flash of pain, no sign of regret, nothing that indicated he regretted asking the question.

"Good," he said. "I'm glad."

"Thanks," she replied. They sat in silence for a few moments. "How've you been?"

"Fine. Great," Colin said with an easy shrug. "I'm interning right now. I'll be all done at the end of this year."

"That's great," Emma responded, smiling. She was genuinely happy for him, and she didn't bother hiding any real happiness she had for him. He smiled back at her. "I've always thought Dr. Delaney has a nice ring to it."

"Thank you." Colin's smile seemed to grow and fade all at the same time. "You know, you have no idea how shocked I am to see you here. Of all places…"

"I know." Emma looked down at her hands, noticing how tightly they were clenched together to keep them from shaking in front of him. She hoped he wasn't able to pick up on what she was doing, on why she was holding her hands so tightly together. "It was kind of a…spur of the moment decision."

"Shock of a lifetime." Colin's eyes didn't leave her face. "How's your family doing?"

"They're good," Emma said, looking up. "My aunt and uncle are doing the same thing they always do. Alex is an editor, and Evan's a physical therapist, and Dave's just out of college, so he's doing some work at a vet clinic. He's always had a thing for animals."

"I remember." Colin's smile returned. "He gave Alex a hard time about wanting to take Laura to the zoo that one spring break we were on."

"He's got a really tender heart," Emma said. Suddenly, she didn't know what to say anymore. She was tired, uncomfortable, and worried. One half of her felt relieved to see Steve in that video; he'd been moving so effortlessly that it convinced her he would be able to get out of anything alive. And yet, the other half of her felt even more worried and anxious for his safety than she'd felt in the first place. If SHIELD had started sending out helicarriers after him, that could only be a sign that things were getting bad. And if they were sending out helicarriers after him, she had no idea what they were sending after her.

She thought back to the group of men in black who'd arrived at the hotel with weapons. They'd been after her, and she'd known it, only to receive confirmation on the train when she'd updated her Google search on her phone and seen the headlines now calling for her to be taken into SHIELD, too. She was every bit as wanted as Steve, and she was just truly and horribly lost.

"How long will you be here?" Colin asked. Emma shrugged and shook her head noncommittally, and she looked down at her hands again as she felt the tears starting to fill her eyes. She heard Colin shift forward on the couch, and she quickly lifted her head and turned it away from him so he couldn't see her face. "Emma."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's…it's been stressful. This…has never happened to me before," she said in a shaky voice as she tried to continue fighting her tears. "I don't know what to do. I just…I don't know. I don't know how I'm supposed to deal with all this. Colin, I'm a _nurse_. I'm supposed to take care of people. Not…not run from the government."

"It'll be ok," Colin said. She thought back to all the times he'd told her that before and how she'd never quite believed him in the past. And then she thought about Steve telling her she'd be ok, and she remembered that she always believed him. No matter what. Suddenly, she wished that he were there with her even more strongly than she'd wished it that morning in the hotel room. She wished he could be there beside her to tell her that they were going to get out of this—he was a leader, and he knew how to cheer people up and get them ready to go. She needed that more than ever—hell, she just needed _him_.

"I keep trying to tell myself that," she said, her voice still shaking. She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye. "I just haven't been able to figure out how."

* * *

Steve stared at the empty gum dispenser in the vending machine and nearly shat himself right then and there. The flash drive he'd deposited there just earlier that morning, bright and early before the sun had even come up, was gone. His blue eyes were wide as he took in the sight of the empty spot, his muscles completely tensed and still beneath his hoodie. Before he went into too much of a panic, however, he heard the sound of bubblegum popping from behind him. He looked up into the glass and saw the reflection of Natasha Romanoff.

He turned and grabbed her arm, roughly shoving her into the examination room across the hall from them and shoving her into the wall without even bothering to shut the door behind him. "Where is it?"

"Safe," Natasha replied, her eyebrows drawing in together the slightest bit.

"It better," he hissed back at her.

"Where did you get it?" she countered.

"Why would I tell _you_?" he countered back, his voice laced with accusation and anger. Natasha regarded him with confusion and mild frustration.

"Fury gave it to you," she said as she ignored his question. "Why?"

"What's on it?" Steve asked. He didn't back away from her, nor did he loosen his grip on her arms.

"I don't know," Natasha said defiantly.

"Stop lying!" Steve quietly growled.

"I only _act_ like I know everything, Rogers," Natasha said defensively, her frown deepening slightly.

"Whoa there." A voice behind him made him turn his head. Grace Marks stood behind him with her arms folded across her chest and her head tilted to the side. Her hair was back in her signature French braid, and she was wearing her typical blank expression. "Thanks for inviting me to the party."

"Grace," Steve snapped. Her amber eyes didn't look away from him, and she crossed towards them.

"I thought I'd come check this whole scene out," she replied easily.

"I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?" Steve asked. Grace blinked, and her eyes flicked over to Natasha, the two of them exchanging a look.

"Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you," she replied. Anger passed over Steve's face, and he advanced on Grace.

"I'm not going to ask you again," he snapped. Instantly, Grace snapped into a defensive position. Steve froze and backed up, realizing his mistake. If Grace went into survival mode because she felt like Steve was attacking her, that would only mean bad news.

"I know who killed Fury," Natasha said suddenly. Steve watched Grace's body language ease and her face slacken, and he turned around to face the redheaded spy. "Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists. The ones that do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last _fifty _years."

"So he's a ghost story," Steve said. He looked over at Grace to gauge her reaction but found her just staring in silence.

"Five years ago I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control and went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him. Straight through me." Natasha lifted up her shirt to show the bullet wound on her hip. "Soviet slug. No rifling. Bye bye, bikinis."

Steve paused. "Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now."

"She does," Grace answered drily. She crossed in towards them.

"Going after him's a dead end. I know. I've tried," Natasha continued. "Like you said." She glanced over at Grace. "He's a ghost story."

Steve glanced back at the amber-eyed agent and saw her pull out the flash drive. He gave her a look of disbelief, and she smirked.

"I told you it was safe," Natasha said. Steve reached out and took the flash drive from Grace's hand, a frown on his face.

"Well, let's find out what the ghost wants," he said.

"Sorry about Emma, by the way," Natasha spoke up. Steve shot her a sharp look, his frown deepening at her words.

"Thanks," he said.

"Know where she is?" Grace asked, concern lacing her voice.

"No," Steve shortly answered. "If they haven't found her yet, though, I call that a good sign."

"You and me both," Grace replied. "So let's get this taken care of. The sooner we figure it out, the sooner you get to go back to your nurse, and the sooner I get to go back to my…Iron Man."

"What's Stark doing right now? He could be of some help," Natasha suggested. Grace gave her an odd look, and she shook her head.

"Probably not the best time to call him," she said vaguely. "I think we'll just have to let that one lie low."

"Why?" Steve asked. "He usually likes getting involved with things."

"Well…he doesn't really know I'm here right now, and while he'd be of some help to us, I think he'd also be more concerned with some things that shouldn't concern him. Such as hacking SHIELD. So let's keep this one just between us," Grace said. Steve wanted to ask her more about what she was talking about, but he could tell by the extra stony look in her eyes that asking was out of the question, so he didn't.

"Ready?" Steve asked. Natasha nodded, and Grace lifted her hand in a cheeky salute.

"Aye aye, Captain."

* * *

Steve had always secretly rolled his eyes at the people who wore fake, thick-framed, black glasses, but now he was wearing them on his own face. In addition to that, he was wearing a black baseball cap and a hoodie and high-top sneakers that felt like they were going to fall off his feet if he needed to run. On his right and left, Natasha and Grace were dressed similarly. Grace had even put in colored contacts to hide her unusual colored eyes.

"First rule of going on the run is don't run, walk," she said quietly beneath her breath to Steve.

"If I run in these shoes, they're going to fall off," Steve grumbled. She grinned and laughed softly.

"You're such an old man," she said.

"They're impractical," Steve replied. Grace and Natasha laughed again as they kept walking towards the Apple store. Steve kept glancing out of the corner of his eyes, even though he knew he probably shouldn't, but he couldn't shake the paranoid feeling he was having. Grace and Natasha both looked perfectly at ease as they walked through the mall, and he tried to emulate their facial expressions.

As soon as they crossed into the Apple store, Natasha picked a computer and began to start working. "The drive has a Level Six homing program, so as soon as we boot up, SHIELD will know exactly where we are."

"How much time will we have?" Steve asked.

"Uh, about nine minutes," Grace replied. Natasha looked up appreciatively and nodded in agreement before looking back down at the computer.

"From…now." She plugged it in and began typing. Grace leaned against the edge of the table and watched her.

"You should let me try," she said. "I'm quicker."

"Shut up, Grace," Natasha happily replied. "I've been doing this longer than you have."

"I'm engaged to the world's greatest hacker," Grace countered. Had Natasha not been so busy trying to do what she needed to, she would have looked up and glared at the fellow agent, but she kept working.

"Fury was right about that ship," Natasha said suddenly. "Somebody's trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of AI. It keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands."

"Natasha, let me at it," Grace said in a dull voice.

"You override it?" Steve asked, his eyes still searching for any signs of SHIELD.

"Person who developed this is slightly smarter than me," Natasha reluctantly admitted. "Slightly."

"Dammit, Nat," Grace sighed. "Let me look at it."

"Grace, just because you're engaged to Tony doesn't mean—" Natasha's voice was cut off as Grace pushed past her and started typing furiously. Irritation flashed over the Russian's face, and she glanced up at Steve to give him a bored look.

"Dammit," Grace hissed. "I need more time."

"We don't have more time," Natasha replied.

"I know. I'm going to try running a tracer." Grace started typing even more furiously. "This is a program that SHIELD developed to track hostile malwares, so if we can't read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from."

"Can I help you guys with anything?" A salesman with long blonde hair suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Grace kept typing, and Natasha flung her arms around Steve, her face suddenly bright and cheerful and adoring.

"Oh, no, my fiancé was just helping me with some honeymoon destinations," Natasha said with a girlish giggle. Steve forced himself to smile.

"Right," he said in a fake voice. "We're getting married."

"Maid of honor," Grace threw in with a cheesy smile over her shoulder as she kept typing.

"Congratulations," the salesman said, beaming happily. "Where are you guys thinking about going?"

Steve looked down at the screen to see what Grace was doing, desperately trying for any kind of hint, and he caught sight of a state name. "New Jersey."

"Huh!" The salesman nodded, looking impressed. Suddenly, he looked at Steve and squinted a little bit. The Super Soldier felt a flash of fear as he thought that the man was about to recognize him. "You know, I have the exact same glasses."

Relief flood his body, and he tried to smile. From behind him, Grace spoke up. "Wow, you two are practically twins."

The man chuckled. "Yeah. I wish." He held his hands up and moved them down slightly, palms facing Steve. "Specimen. Uh, if you guys need anything, I've been Aaron."

Steve watched as Aaron lifted his name tag to show them that he was, indeed, Aaron before he turned and walked off. When Aaron was out of ear reach, he turned back towards Grace and Natasha. In the back of his mind, he could hear Emma telling him he was a specimen—she'd murmured that to him once before on the night that they'd had sex for the first time. His heart tugged at the thought of her, and he forced the thoughts out of his head so he wouldn't get caught up on them.

"Really? Engaged?" he deadpanned. "I feel like I just cheated on Emma."

"Relax," Natasha said dismissively. "If you won't even be engaged to Emma, you might as well be engaged while undercover."

"What?" Grace asked from her spot at the laptop.

"Like a test run," Natasha explained. Without pausing, Grace grinned.

"You know, that's actually a really good idea," she said. "Doesn't it feel good to be engaged, Steve?"

"Yeah, you'd know all about that," Natasha retorted with a snort. "You've been engaged to Stark for too long now."

"Ha ha, shut up," Grace droned back.

"You said nine minutes. Come on," Steve snapped, suddenly coming back into business mode.

"Shhh. Relax," Grace said soothingly as she calmly kept typing into the computer. Then she smiled. "Got it."

"Could've done it faster," Natasha said. Grace beamed at her and raised her eyebrows.

"Doubt it," she said. "Come on. We need to get out of here. Now."

"Why?" Natasha asked.

"SHIELD. I can sense those sons of bitches from nine miles away," Grace said casually. "They're in the mall."

Steve suddenly saw the place that the program had honed in on, and he leaned forward. Natasha studied him. "You know it?"

"I used to," he said. "Let's go."

"I second that," Grace said. She popped the flash drive out of the computer and started walking straight out of the Apple store, Natasha and Steve hot on her heels.

"Which way?" Natasha asked. Grace paused, and then she turned to the left, trusting her instincts and her senses. Steve and Natasha followed her, joining her on either side.

"Standard tag team. Two behind, two across, two coming straight at us," Grace announced quietly.

"Spot on," Steve confirmed as he looked around him to check out her prediction. "If they make us, I'll engage, you two hit the south escalator, and hit the Metro."

"Shut up and put your arm around us, laugh at something I said," Natasha ordered in her straight deadpan.

"What?" Steve asked, confused.

"Do it," Grace snapped, and she quickly wrapped her arm around Steve's waist and ducked her head into him as if he were the coolest thing she'd ever seen and would ever see. Steve didn't have time to think about what else to say or do, so he just went along with it. Natasha was the one farther away from the agents coming towards them, and so he tilted his head towards her and let out what was probably the most fake laugh he'd ever allowed.

As they passed the agents, Steve loosened his arms around the two female spies and winced slightly. "I feel like a pimp."

"Shut up," Grace ordered. He didn't bother trying to say anything else. Instead, he just kept moving forward and towards the escalator. As soon as they set foot on it, he felt Grace tense in front of him. "Rumlow. Goddammit. I hate that son of a bitch."

Natasha turned towards Steve, looking up at him with a serious face. "Kiss me."

"What?" Steve asked, feeling even more confused and incredulous this time than he had before. His heart picked up not with desire but with nervousness.

"Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable," Natasha said seriously. Steve stared at her with disbelieving wide, blue eyes behind his hipster glasses.

"Yes, they do," he uncomfortably agreed. He was about to protest some more, but Natasha reached up and grabbed the back of his neck, planting a good one on his mouth while Grace pulled out her cell phone and pretended to be busy. Steve kept his head tilted down so no one could see his face, but his eyes grew large.

Kissing Natasha was very different than kissing Emma. He couldn't exactly place his finger on the thing that made it different but it was _completely _different. The way Natasha touched him, moved her mouth against his, and even held the back of his head were the total opposite of the way Emma did, and he found himself missing her more and more with each second. Finally, Natasha pulled away from him and smirked.

"You still uncomfortable?" she asked as she turned to face forward.

"I feel like I cheated on my girlfriend," Steve honestly replied in a glum, straight tone. Grace and Natasha laughed at the same time, quietly and under their breaths so that they wouldn't attract any attention.

"You didn't cheat on her. You just…did what you had to in the moment," Natasha suggested.

"Was I willing?" Steve countered. Natasha shot him a bored look.

"Did you want to get taken in to SHIELD?" she asked. He pressed his lips together, and he shook his head.

"I still feel like I cheated on her," he said.

"You're fine," Grace chimed in reassuringly. "She'll understand."

And Steve knew that Emma _would _understand, and she might even think it was the tiniest bit funny if she were in the right kind of mood when he told her, but he still felt a little guilty about it. Emma was already slightly intimidated by the sensual Natasha Romanoff, so hearing that he kissed her wouldn't make her warm up that much more to the redheaded spy; nonetheless, he knew that he was lucky enough to have a girlfriend who was fine with him doing what he had to do in order to stay alive.

"See, if you just proposed to her, it wouldn't be so bad," Natasha said as they started towards the exit of the mall.

"I agree," Grace added.

"Really? This again?" Steve asked, though he was actually somewhat amused by the conversation, even though he didn't want to say so or show any signs of it; if he showed that he didn't _hate _the topic, they would keep pushing him, and that was the last thing he wanted.

Actually, the last thing he wanted was them to find out that he'd actually been thinking about asking Emma to marry him. He'd thought over it time and time again, even more so these past few days. The thought was always lingering in the back of his mind, and the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to. If Natasha weren't there, he probably would have told Grace and asked her opinion on it. His friendship with the amber-eyed agent had grown significantly throughout the years; even though they bantered and snipped and sniped at each other, she was the best friend he had in the modern world, and he knew without a doubt that she would be there for him in a heartbeat.

Whenever Natasha wasn't being nosy, he'd have to ask Grace what she actually thought about him asking Emma to marry him. And yet, in the back of his brain, he couldn't help feeling guilty. Emma wouldn't be in this situation if it weren't for him. She wouldn't be completely severed from any kind of communication with him if it hadn't been for him.

He'd often tried to imagine what his life would be like without Emma, what it would have been like when he'd first woken up, and the thought was always impossible. Emma had helped him adjust to the world and everything with it, and she still continued to do it every day. Without Emma, he wouldn't have been able to do it so gracefully and smoothly. But for the first time, he thought about what Emma's life would have been like if it hadn't been for him.

Ever since he'd met her, she'd been getting hurt because of him. The first month she'd known him, she'd been injured in the explosion near where he'd received his Serum when he'd been showing her around his memories of New York. Just several months ago she'd been in a car accident because someone had figured out that he had told her about her parents, and she'd been digging around to find out more as a result. And now. Emma had been brought into this whole shit show with Nick Fury and SHIELD hunting both him _and _her because of him.

He remembered how she'd looked when he'd broken into his own apartment to see what was going on. He remembered the look on her face as he'd told her he had to go in to SHIELD for further questioning. He remembered the sound of her voice as he'd told her she had to leave the hotel and get somewhere safe. One thing all three of those incidents had in common was fear. She'd been terrified. He'd seen it on her face and heard it in her voice. Emma would not have been in danger—no, she wouldn't have feared for her life, if it hadn't been for him.

"Yep," Natasha cheerfully replied. "It's simple, really. All you do is just get on your knee, give her a ring, and boom—you're engaged."

"I don't think it quite goes like that," Steve said. He opened the door that led to the parking garage, and he scanned over the cars. They were headed to New Jersey and would need something to get them there—something sturdy and reliable.

"That's basically what Tony did," Grace said. She narrowed her eyes at Steve as he glanced over at her. "Don't you dare say anything."

"I didn't—"

"Your eyes always say much more than you think they do, Steve," she blithely replied. "But seriously, Turks and Caicos is a really great place to honeymoon."

"Can we get out of here alive first?" Steve asked. "If we get out of here in one piece, then you can plan my wedding. Honeymoon, too."

"I'm picturing a red, white, and blue theme, or is that too obnoxious?" Natasha asked as Steve spotted a large black pick up truck; he preferred larger vehicles. He remembered the days when he'd driven tanks back during the war, and driving big vehicles made him think about the good old days. He felt Natasha and Grace glance up at him as they noticed he'd zeroed in on the truck.

"We're taking that?" Grace asked. Steve nodded once, and he started towards it. She stood in place, watching him, and then she glanced over at Natasha. "Red, white, and blue is definitely too obnoxious."

* * *

"Agent 13."

Sharon's head lifted at the sound of Alexander Pierce's voice for the second time that day, and she paused as she saw him approach her. "Sir."

"You've been assigned to keep watch on Captain Rogers and Emma Carroll for a number of months now, am I correct?" Pierce asked, his tone showing that he was asking this just for drama. He knew that she'd been assigned to them, and he knew she knew it, too.

"Yes, sir," she carefully replied, trying not to let any confusion into her voice.

"Perfect. You've developed a friendship with Emma Carroll. From what I've read in your reports," Pierce replied. Again, Sharon kept her tone careful.

"Yes, sir. Somewhat," she said. "We're more friendly acquaintances than anything. Now she knows my true identity, however."

"Right, right, of course." Pierce nodded emphatically. "Well, Miss Carroll seems to have disappeared. Clean off the radar. Now, the thing is, she doesn't know anything about staying undercover for long. So she'll be making mistakes if she doesn't get in contact with Captain Rogers. And she's not. We're monitoring all the calls in the area, and she won't have any way to contact him without us knowing. So she'll be slipping up."

"Sir?" Sharon was confused.

"I want you to stay at watch on her apartment. All hours of the day. Until you see her come back. And then I want you to bring her in here," Pierce said. Sharon paused.

"What has she done that needs to be questioned?" she asked. Pierce blinked.

"I never said she was going to be questioned, Agent." His tone implied what he meant. Without waiting a moment longer for her to respond, he turned and walked away, leaving Sharon with a sick feeling in her stomach and a muted horrified look on her face.


	6. HYDRA

**Shoutouts to thecruelworldwelivein, Lilybear3121, Jo, RL, lovefairytale007, DessieDawn, bellapaige88, stuffoflegends, Layla347, Lunar678, and LilyHiddleson96 for reviewing! Wow, that's the most reviews I've gotten on a chapter for this story, and y'all are just the sweetest! Seriously making my day over here.**

**Some housekeeping: bellapaige88 asked why Sharon's called Agent 13. Good question. I don't know the answer, but if anyone else does, please feel free to let me know because I'd like to know why, too. Don't worry, guys, Emma will be back in the action soon, but she's got some lying low to do for a while until she figures out what she's going to do. And of course, she has to lie low with someone SHIELD would never suspect. But she will be back in the movie action before you know it. Promise.**

**Also glad that you guys were ok with the way I did the Steve/Natasha kiss =)**

**Ok, this chapter has a huge plot twist at the end. If you've read _Shaped by Things to Come (_if you haven't, you should because it ties into this story and builds up to this one. There are a lot of questions and plot details you'll be missing if you haven't read both _Shaped by Things to Come _and _Healing Touch_), there will be answers to some questions I left hanging in that story. Huge, major plot twist at the end. Don't hate me. Please.**

**As always, please keep reviewing because it makes this miserable camp experience so much better. I love y'all!**

**Enjoy! =)**

**P.S. I created an account on archiveofourown . org and am updating and uploading my stuff on there, too. My username is ThoughtfulConstellations so feel free to follow me or whatever it is you do on there. Do you guys like that website? I've been wondering whether to start an account, and I finally did. Let me know what you guys think about that site if you have any opinions. PM or reviews are fine =) I always answer my PMs! Sorry for how long this Author's Note is ugh so sorry.**

* * *

Chapter 6

The drive was relatively quiet, and Steve was ok with that. In fact, he'd been the one to set the mood to let Natasha and Grace know that he just wasn't feeling talkative. He kept checking at his phone in the cup holder off to his right to see if he had anything from Emma; realistically, he knew that he wouldn't. He'd told her not to call him, and knowing her, she wouldn't, no matter how much she wanted to. She followed orders just as well as he did, and she was more afraid for his safety than he was, so if he told her not to, she wouldn't.

They'd just passed over the border into New Jersey when Natasha spoke up. "Where'd Captain America learn how to steal a car?"

"Nazi Germany," Steve calmly replied. "And we're _borrowing_. Take your feet off the dash."

Natasha gave him an even stare that could even be described as amused, but she lowered her feet. Steve glanced into his rearview mirror and looked into the backseat—Grace was leaning against the door with her feet up on the seat, and she was looking out the window. He thought about telling her to take her feet down, too, but then he caught sight of her socked feet and decided not to say anything. At least she wouldn't be leaving dirty scuffs anywhere.

"Alright, I have a question for you, which you do not have to answer," Natasha spoke up. Grace looked forward, interested. "I feel like if you don't answer it, though, you're kind of answering it, you know—"

"What?" Steve irritably interrupted.

"Have you kissed anyone else since 1945 who wasn't Emma?" the Russian asked, a grin on her face. Instantly, Grace leaned forward from the backseat and put her head between theirs to hear the answer. Steve suddenly felt very, very self-conscious, and he wasn't sure what to make of it. To him, Natasha was implying that he was so used to kissing Emma that his kissing was boring. He glanced over at her and then at Grace, the two women staring expectantly back at him.

"That bad, huh?" he asked blandly as he took his eyes back to the road.

"I didn't say that!" Natasha protested.

"Well, it kind of _sounds _like that's what you're saying," Steve pointed out in a testy voice.

"No, I didn't—I just wondered what other experience you've had," Natasha argued. "You and Emma got together like, immediately after you thawed out. I just wasn't sure."

"Experience," Steve repeated in a dull tone.

"For practice," Natasha explained.

"I don't need practice," Steve defensively protested some more.

"Everyone needs practice!" Natasha said. She looked at Grace and raised her eyebrows. "Chime in any time you want, Marks."

"You do need practice," Grace said. She caught his sharp scowl, and she held up her hands in surrender. "I didn't mean you specifically. I'm talking about an in general 'you'."

"Well, I get plenty of practice with Emma," Steve retorted.

"But you haven't experienced anyone else," Natasha finished.

"Is that bad? Why do I get the feeling that's bad? I'm confused," Steve said. "First, you want me to get engaged to Emma, and now you want me to experience women outside of Emma."

"Hold up," Grace said. "No one said anything negative about your kissing skills. Natasha was curious, I was curious—hey, I'll admit it—and no one's trying to get you to experience anyone other than Emma. You're happy with her, and you're in love with her, and if that's all the experience you have, that's a really special thing you have going for you."

Steve wanted to glance back at her to gauge how serious she was being, but he could tell from the tone of her voice that she was being dead serious. He kept his blue eyes on the road as he continued to drive and tried to keep his face as blank as she always kept hers. He didn't want to show them that he was thinking about Emma right now—well, in all fairness, he was always thinking about Emma, but he was worrying about Emma, and that was something he didn't want these two perceptive agents to see.

"Yeah, you didn't have to look around trying to find the right one," Natasha added. "You really did get lucky."

"I did," Steve levelly replied.

"So did Em break those 1940s morals of yours?" Natasha asked in a teasing voice, the implications very obvious. Steve glanced at her and raised an eyebrow.

"I'm 95—I'm not dead," he said.

"But no one else?" Natasha pushed.

Steve gave a soft laugh. "Believe it or not, it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience."

"Well, that's all right. You just make something up," Natasha pointed out. Steve glanced at her.

"What, like you?" he asked. His eyes went back to Grace. "You, too?"

"I don't know. The truth is a matter of circumstance. It's not all things to all people all the time. Neither am I," she replied. Grace didn't say anything, her face unreadable, as usual.

"That's a tough way to live," Steve said.

"It's a good way not to die, though," Grace murmured from the backseat. Silence passed between the three of them; Grace Marks hadn't been terribly talkative since the whole incident with Fury. When the machines had shut down, she'd shut down, too. Even though she was responding and was on top of her game, she wasn't as fully there as she usually was; instead, she was quiet and more withdrawn.

"You know, it's kind of hard to trust someone when you don't know who that someone really is," Steve solemnly pointed out.

"Yeah," Natasha agreed, staring at the Super Soldier straight on. "Who do you want me to be?"

"How about a friend?" Steve asked.

Natasha quietly laughed, and she looked away from him. "Well, there's a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers."

"Besides, the people who are willing to trust you when they don't know your true colors are the ones you know you can let yourself trust." Grace leaned back from her spot in between Natasha and Steve and went back to lying down in the backseat. Steve ran Grace's words through his head—setting out on this mission with two of the world's greatest spies probably hadn't been a smart move on his part, and yet, he couldn't imagine doing it with anyone else. Natasha he didn't fully trust, but Grace he trusted without any doubt. He knew he didn't know everything there was to know about her, but he knew he could trust her.

He only hoped the same could be said of Natasha.

* * *

Emma walked around the living room of Colin's small house, looking at everything. He had all kinds of pictures propped up on his bookshelves, and she was reminded of how her living room back in her apartment with Steve looked. He'd always been just as sentimental as she was, so it didn't surprise her that he had so many pictures around; it also didn't surprise her that he had none of the time that they'd been friends.

Colin walked back into the living room with two bottles of water in his hand. He paused when he saw her looking at the pictures. Emma could feel his eyes on her, but she didn't turn to look at him, choosing to keep studying the pictures.

"What are you looking for?" he asked.

"Nothing," Emma honestly replied. "I'm just looking."

"I brought you a bottle of water if you want it," he said. She finally looked away from the pictures and walked towards him to get it from him. She was careful to not let her hand touch his as she took the bottle, pulling it in to her and twisting the cap off.

"Thanks," she said. "You know, tap water is just as clean as bottled water."

"Really?" Colin asked, though he didn't sound all that interested. Emma nodded.

"Yeah. Buying bottled water is kind of a waste of money," she said. Silence passed between them. "I'm sorry. I don't know where that came from. I wasn't trying to…I don't—I wasn't trying to tell you how to live your life or anything."

"You're fine," Colin replied. "Don't worry about it."

He crossed back to the couch he'd sat on earlier, and he sat down on it as Emma crossed to her respective side to sit. They'd spent the rest of the afternoon making small talk and catching up on each other's lives since the last time they'd seen each other, but there was still the elephant in the room that Emma knew they'd have to face at some point.

She took a large swig of water and closed her eyes at the feeling of the cool liquid washing down her throat; she hadn't realized how thirsty she'd been until now, and she was grateful for the water, even if it was bottled and a waste of Colin's money. She lowered the bottle from her lips and looked at him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I feel bad about coming here."

"Don't," he said. "I probably would've done the same thing."

Emma lifted her eyebrows at him curiously. "Would you?"

"I don't know. I'm not the one running from the law." Colin's mouth tilted up into a smile, and Emma smiled back at him. He was trying to make things lighter between them, and she had to appreciate that about him, despite how awkward things were.

"Touche," she said. "You're right about that."

"And you're sure you're not in any kind of trouble. Like, _real _trouble?" Colin asked. Emma inwardly sighed—they'd been through this a few times earlier that afternoon, and she didn't want to go through it again. It wasn't because she was tired of explaining it that she didn't want to go through it, but it was because she hated lying to him. She hated lying to anyone, but she especially didn't want to lie to Colin.

"Yes," she said slowly. "It's a lot to digest. I know."

"I'm just trying to figure out how to help you," Colin honestly answered with a small frown on his face.

"Thank you," Emma said sincerely. "I really appreciate it."

"It's the least I could do. All things considered," Colin said. Emma's heart sank. And here it was. The conversation she'd been trying so hard to avoid, though she'd always known that realistically it would happen. She slowly breathed in, and then she slowly let that breath out.

"We don't have to do this," she said quietly, almost begging. "We've had an ok afternoon so far. I don't want to drag old things up again."

"Em, I have to apologize," Colin said, his tone mirroring hers. "If I hadn't—"

"Stop. Please." Emma ran a hand through her hair, noticing how it felt messy and unkempt, and she looked down at her water bottle. "I really don't want to. It was in the past, and we both were young. We were really young, and there's nothing we could do about."

"I shouldn't have pushed you to take on anything you didn't want to," Colin said. "Please know that. Please know that I know that."

"Ok. Ok, I know it," Emma said quickly, too quickly. Colin's face became still, and then he nodded.

"Ok," he said finally. Emma looked back up at him, and she offered him a half-smile and a half-shrug.

"Besides, after spending so much time as a nurse, I know I was right. I would've made a terrible doctor," she said. "That was always your path. Not mine."

"I know," he said softly. "I'm just sorry I didn't know that until it was too late."

Emma suddenly wished she'd never come here. She wished that she'd gone to a stranger's house instead of Colin's, and she wondered what the hell had been going through her mind to bring him to his door. He'd been right when he'd told her that she'd come because she'd known he wouldn't turn her away. That was exactly why she'd come. She'd used a former connection to her advantage, and now she was regretting it.

It wasn't that she was feeling anything from her past starting to stir up again because she wasn't—she really wasn't. She just didn't want to face these old ghosts any more than she'd wanted to face going home to the memories of her dead parents and the childhood she'd had in Manchester, Connecticut. She'd always been horrible at dealing with her past, and she was given another painful reminder of that as she sat in Colin's living room on his couch with his bottle of water in her hand.

"I believe you," she said. "But I'm not."

"I know," Colin said again. She searched his face for any kind of pain but found none there; he was either really good at covering it up, or he just didn't feel any anymore. "Rogers seems like he's a good guy."

"He is," Emma said. "He's wonderful. He's…he's wonderful."

She wished she could have come up with a better description for Steve than "he's wonderful," but she was at a loss for words. She didn't want to hurt Colin by saying that Steve was the best thing she ever could have hoped to find in her life, but she didn't want to spare his feelings too much and give him the wrong idea.

"We went on the right paths," Colin said. "I know we did. I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry."

"And I know it," Emma said with a gentle smile. "We were kids, Colin. We didn't know any better."

"I did," Colin said quietly. "I was just an idiot."

"No, you were young," Emma corrected.

"Emma, I told you I wanted you to become a doctor because I was embarrassed that you were just a nurse. I knew better. I was just an idiot." Colin's tone was serious, and she inwardly flinched at the sound of his words. Hearing them so fresh on his lips was like reliving everything all over again.

She'd been 18 and a freshman at Fordham when they'd met. He'd been there with the intentions of becoming a doctor, and she'd been there to become a nurse. They'd hit it off immediately, and he had been everything she'd wanted and needed at the time. Colin had been her first adult relationship, and they were together for a little over a year when they'd broken up because Colin had told her he was embarrassed of the fact that she was going to be a nurse instead of a doctor. They hadn't broken up right then and there; they'd tried to make it work after that, after a huge fight that had lasted several days and had ended in Emma finally saying she forgave him, even though she hadn't meant it.

Their relationship had only gone downhill from there, and the final straw had been when Emma had one day told him she no longer wanted to be with him, and she'd left his apartment without another word. There hadn't been a fight, no heartbroken emails or phone calls. She'd simply walked in, looked at him, and said, "Colin, I can't do this anymore. I'm done. I don't want this."

And then she'd left.

But here she was now in his living room, and she was wishing she hadn't come here at all. Colin looked the same but different all at the same time. He looked older and more handsome, but he also had the same boyish grin and sparkly eyes he'd had as a bright-eyed 18 year old college freshman with dreams of being the best doctor New York had ever seen.

"Let's just be done with this conversation, ok?" she asked gently to show that she didn't mean her words to be cruel. "I don't want to rehash everything we spent so long trying to fix but failed to do. I'm happy now. Are you?"

"Yeah," Colin honestly answered with a small smile. "I am."

"There you go," she said. "We're happy."

"But what are you going to do now, Em?" he asked, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. She stared at him and repeated the question to herself. These days it seemed that she was always coming up short with an answer.

How could she answer the question for him when she couldn't even answer it herself?

* * *

Steve would have recognized the camp anywhere. So when he saw the shut down dilapidated place that had created him, he barely needed to blink twice. Seeing it brought back all sorts of memories to him. He remembered being skinny and determined, asthmatic and frustrated. He remembered feeling like he couldn't possibly succeed but knew that he had to.

His throat tightened, and he glanced over at Natasha and Grace as they crossed in front of the truck to meet him, their eyes lifted up towards the fence and the buildings behind it. As strange as it was, Steve sort of wished that Emma were there with him. Actually, not sort of—he _did _wish that Emma were there with him. Showing his girlfriend the camp that had made him into what he was wasn't exactly a top priority in introducing her to things from his past.

"This is it," he said out loud.

"The file came from these coordinates," Grace said suspiciously, her normally amber eyes narrowing as she looked around.

"So did I," Steve added. Both female spies paused and turned to look at him.

"Camp Lehigh," Grace said, guessing as Natasha's green eyes looked up towards the sign posted on the metal fence that had the camp's name stamped across it. Steve didn't say anything, but he crossed towards the fence. He hadn't remembered the fence being there before, but maybe it had. Some things he remembered with surprising clarity, and then other details were slightly fuzzy. He lifted his shield out and broke the lock on the fence. Silently, he, Grace, and Natasha walked into the place that had once meant the opportunity of a lifetime for him.

"This camp is where I was trained," he finally said after a few quiet moments of carefully walking around, eyes, ears, and senses all on alert. He looked over to his right and saw Natasha using some kind of tracker device that was beeping every few seconds.

"Change much?" she asked.

"A little," Steve replied. He looked around, still trying to absorb the fact that he was there. In the back of his mind, he could still hear the drill sergeant yelling at them.

"_Pick up the pace, ladies! Let's go! Let's go!_"

If he tried hard enough, he could see his fellow soldiers running past him, their shoulders weighted down with equipment and the thick, heavy fabric of their uniforms. He could see the faces of men he'd known and trained with, men he'd said goodbye to without knowing that it was for the last time.

"_Double time! Come on, Rogers! Move it!_"

And if Steve tried hard enough, he could see a smaller, skinnier, sicklier version of himself straggling behind everyone else as he tried hard to keep up with the men he so wanted to emulate. He could picture pre-Serum Steve stopping and staring at him with familiar blue eyes that didn't look as though they belonged on his face.

"_Come on! Fall in! Rogers! I said fall in!_"

"Ghosts. Scary, huh?" Grace's voice nearly made him jump out of his skin, and he looked down at the small, powerful agent as she gazed up at him with those steady eyes of hers. Even though she had the colored contacts in, he could still feel the burn of her amber irises beneath the colored pieces of silicone. Her words made him think about how he and Emma had recently talked about how they hated dealing with ghosts, and a chill ran down his spine.

"Something like that," he drily responded.

"Well, this is a dead end," Natasha announced from several feet in front of them, seeming to not have heard their conversation or noticed the fact that they'd fallen back behind her. "Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off."

"No," Grace said calmly. "It came from here."

"What, are you fucking psychic now?" Natasha asked with a smirk. Just as calm as always, Grace shook her head.

"No," she said. "I can sense the electricity. The kind of energy that it'd take to have a file like that."

"Then where is it?" Natasha asked and held her arms out to the side slightly. "Because I'm stumped." She glanced over at Steve and saw him staring intently at a building. "What is it?"

"Army regulation forbids storing munitions within 500 yards of the barracks. This building's in the wrong place," he explained as he started walking towards the building that had caught his eye. He slowed in front of the old, ragged building and looked up at it.

"Bingo," Grace added.

"Bingo, you agree, or bingo, this is where the drive came from?" Natasha asked.

"The latter," Grace easily replied. She and Natasha came to a halt beside him as he drew his arm back only to bring it forward and smash the lock the exact same way he'd done it at the wire gate only moments before. Steve pushed the doors open and started walking down the stairs into the belly of the building. "This isn't sketchy at all."

"Be on alert, Grace," Steve ordered. He didn't need to look back at her to know that she was rolling her eyes as she replied to him.

"Because I'm ever not on alert."

The three moved slowly into the center of the room, and the lights began to turn on. Directly in front of them, in fact the very first thing that Steve noticed, was the SHIELD emblem painted bold in black on the cement wall.

"This is SHIELD," Grace said out loud, her tone showing that she was mildly impressed.

"Maybe where it started," Steve added as his blue eyes scanned the darkness for any clues, any hints, any insight whatsoever into what this building was and what it held. They all silently moved about the room, looking for whatever they could find. As their luck would have it, however, there was basically nothing. A room off to the side caught Steve's attention, and he motioned with his head towards it so that the two spies would follow him.

They crossed into the room; it was basically empty, save for a few pictures on the wall that Steve recognized instantly. He felt his heart rise up into his throat when he saw the pictures of Howard Stark and Peggy Carter staring back at him. The pictures showed them exactly as he remembered them, and he found himself suffering from an intense blast to the past that he hadn't been expecting at all.

"There's Stark's father," Natasha pointed out. Steve watched as Grace approached it, her eyes squinted as she studied the picture. He couldn't read her expression at all, but she folded her arms over her chest.

"Tony looks exactly like him," she murmured, though Steve knew that she was speaking more for herself than for either of them.

"Howard," Steve said quietly as he remembered his friend.

"Who's the girl?" Natasha asked. The Russian's question pulled Grace out of her silent thoughts, and she turned to give Natasha a warning look.

"Old friend," Steve answered simply. Grace's eyes flicked back to him, but he didn't look at her, nor did he say anything else. He started walking off when she tilted her head to the side.

"There's a door down there," she said.

"What?" Steve stopped and turned back over his shoulder to give her a confused look. Grace nodded with her head to show where the door was.

"Down there where you're headed," she said. "Go up a little farther, and it'll be off to your right. I guess it's being disguised as a bookcase or something."

"It still amazes me how you can sense shit like that, and I've known you forever," Natasha remarked as she and Grace walked towards Steve as he started examining the wall for any clear giveaways. And then Steve noticed it. A small breeze from the corner of a shelf that blew outwards, making some dust sway with it.

"If you're already working in a secret office…" His voice trailed off as he looked for a place to find good leverage. He put his hands on the shelf and began to pull. He used about half of his strength to get the door to slide open. Behind the door, was another set of doors, but this time they were elevator doors. "Why do you need to hide the elevator?"

Grace walked over to the keypad beside the elevator and examined it. Behind her, Natasha started pulling out her cell phone to run one of her programs on the keypad to find the password, but Grace found it before Natasha had even gotten her cell phone all the way out.

"Seriously, are you psychic now?" Natasha asked, watching the elevator doors slide open. Grinning, Grace shook her head.

"Nope," she said. "I can sense the oil from people's fingers left behind on the buttons, and then I just used deductive reasoning."

"Ok, Sherlock," Natasha mumbled. Steve's mouth slid into a half-smile.

"I understand that one," he said. Then just as quickly as he'd smiled, he slipped back into Captain America mode. "Come on. We need to see where this goes."

He climbed aboard the elevator, and the rest did, too. Effortlessly, the elevator plummeted downwards; Steve couldn't help wondering how long it'd been here and how often it'd been used over the years. It didn't move and creak like an old elevator—it ran perfectly smoothly. That in itself was something to raise his guard.

When the elevator came to a stop, made a ding, and slid open, the three Avengers were faced with darkness. Steve looked out into the black for any hint of danger, but he couldn't see anything. Glancing over at Grace, he tried to read her expression; if there were any sign of danger, she would know first; so if she didn't step out of the elevator, or if she slipped into a defensive position, he would know that there was reason to be alarmed.

But she didn't. Instead, she frowned.

"Grace?" Steve asked.

"This is it," she said out loud, and she took a step into the darkness. Steve and Natasha followed her, careful and suspicious of anything and everything. They were about halfway into the room when the lights switched on to reveal an ancient computer system in front of them. "Bingo."

* * *

Emma was becoming more and more distressed as the afternoon passed into evening and evening passed into night. Colin had been picking up on it, and he'd finally suggested turning the TV off, but she refused; she needed to watch the news to know what was going on. Did SHIELD have any idea where she was? Did they know where Steve was?

More than anything, she wanted to call him and ask him where he was. She needed him to help her through this, and she couldn't even send him a goddamn text to get his help. This was so out of her league she could barely stand it, and she got the feeling that what she was experiencing now was exactly what it was like to go crazy. The worst part was that she felt as though she couldn't really express all of this to Colin—he appeared to be ok, but she didn't want to hurt him by bringing Steve up, by talking about how worried she was.

"Do you like working for SHIELD?" Colin asked suddenly, breaking her away from her intense vigil on the TV. Emma blinked in surprise, and she turned her head to look at Colin

"Yeah," she said. "I guess so. I _did_. Before they started hunting me."

"That's pretty wild," Colin agreed. "You're a fugitive."

"I know." Emma pressed her lips together and curled her legs up under her. She figured that she'd been there for enough hours to not have to worry about being polite anymore; besides, she really didn't give a shit. She just wanted to leave and know that Steve was ok. She felt her phone buzzing, and she glanced down at it to see her thousandth missed call from Evan.

"Your aunt Lacey?" Colin asked, seeing the look that came over her face. Emma shook her head and tucked her phone back into her pocket.

"That was Evan," she said. "I should probably just turn it off. They've been calling and texting me all day."

"I can't blame them," Colin said cautiously, carefully watching her face to make sure she didn't get mad. "I'm sure they're worried sick about you."

"They are," she agreed. "I don't blame them, either."

"Do you think SHIELD's tracking your phone calls?" Colin asked. Emma nodded.

"No doubt about it," she said. "I turned the GPS off so they couldn't track me that way."

"Steve teach you that?" Colin asked. Emma stared at him, again searching his face for any kind of hostility or pain but again finding none.

"No," she said. "Common sense."

"I would've thought you'd be all up to date on spy techniques now," Colin said in a teasing tone that made Emma smile. She shook her head and pulled her phone out again, having decided to turn it off just to be safe.

"Not really," she said. "Remember. I'm just a nurse."

"You're not _just _a nurse," Colin corrected. Emma didn't look up at him, even though her phone had turned off. She didn't want to see his face, didn't want to get into this again. She swallowed and shrugged, keeping her eyes on her hands.

"I'm certainly no spy. I may be a fugitive. But I'm not a spy." She looked back up and gave him a half-smile. "Honestly, I feel like the past two years of my life have been straight out of a movie."

"Your life basically is a movie," Colin said. Emma's smile faded the slightest bit, and she nodded in agreement.

"You're right," she said. "But now I'm just ready for the movie to be over." She paused, and then she smiled again. "That sounded less melodramatic in my head."

"You're fine," Colin said soothingly. Emma looked away and back at the TV, wishing that she could have believed him.

* * *

"This…can't be the data point. This technology's ancient," Natasha said in a confused voice as her green eyes skimmed over each piece of equipment. She looked over at Grace in hopes of a confirmation but found the agent staring at an attachable USB drive: the only modern thing in this ancient tech hovel. Steve noticed the two women's distraction, and he crossed over towards them as Grace pulled the flash drive out and put it into the USB.

Instantly, the machines and computer began to whir. More lights switched on, and everything began moving quicker. A camera on top of one of the computers focused in on the three, meriting a suspicious glare from Grace.

**Initiate system?**

The letters came across the computer screen as a computerized voice read them out loud. Natasha crossed over towards the computer's keyboard and put her fingers on the keys.

"Y-E-S spells yes," she mumbled out loud. The whirring sound increased, and Grace's body eased into a defensive position. Natasha glanced over her shoulder at Steve. "'Wanna play a game?'" She paused. "That's from a movie—"

"I know. I saw," Steve interrupted. Grace's muscles eased the tiniest bit, and she stared curiously at Steve.

"Well, look at you," she said. "Emma showing you the hardcore stuff."

Before Steve could reply, the computer screen began to flicker, and he was instantly drawn towards it. A digital face appeared, still flickering, as a computerized, though familiar, accented voice began to speak.

"Rogers, Steven. Born 1918. Romanov, Natalia Alianovna. Born 1984. Marks, Grace Elizabeth. Born 1984," the voice said.

"It's some kind of recording," Natasha said with a confused, disturbed frown on her face.

"I am _not _a recording, fraulein," the voice insisted in a mildly annoyed tone. "I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am."

"You know this thing?" Grace asked suddenly. Steve frowned as he struggled to understand what was going on. Everything was clicking into place, it seemed, but also, it wasn't.

"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull," he said as he crossed towards the other side of the platform he was on to look around. "He's been dead for years."

"First correction," Zola interrupted, "I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive." Steve felt a chill run down his spine at Zola's words, not because the scientist's tone was creepy but because the words were uncannily true from what he could tell. "In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving. On 200,000 feet of databanks. You…are standing in my brain."

"Fucking weird," Grace muttered.

"Not any weirder than you are, Grace Marks," Zola retorted.

"How did you get _here_?" Steve asked. As always, he never lost sight of the true end of the mission.

"Invited," Zola explained with a delighted tone to his voice.

"This Operation: Paperclip after World War II, SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value," Natasha explained quietly, her eyebrows still tightly drawn together in a confused frown as she, too, struggled to process everything that was happening.

"They thought I could help their cause," Zola added. "I also helped my own."

"HYDRA died with the Red Skull," Steve pointed out, his confusion only deepening. He felt Natasha's green eyes turn towards him.

"Cut off one head, two more will take its place," Zola said as his digital face turned into a digital HYDRA emblem that sent more chills down the Super Soldier's spine.

"Prove it," Steve challenged.

"Accessing archive," Zola announced. Additional computer screens began displaying images of Johann Schmidt back when he was still Schmidt and not the Red Skull. "HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did _not _realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist."

Images of Steve as Captain America fighting during World War II flashed on the screens. Steve swallowed hard.

"The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded."

Images of Howard Stark. Peggy. SHIELD emblems.

"And I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew a beautiful parasite. _Inside SHIELD_. For 70 years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war."

Images of powerful world leaders.

"And when history did not cooperate, history was changed."

"That's impossible. SHIELD would have stopped you," Grace said breathlessly. Steve looked over at her and for the first time, she was wearing exactly what she felt. Her face was covered with shock and horror, disgust. She looked as though she were about to be sick.

"Accidents will happen," Zola said as pictures of a headline detailing Howard and Maria Stark's deaths came on the screen. Then Nick Fury's. Now Steve thought he was going to be sick. "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise."

Images of the helicarriers from Project Insight that Fury had shown Steve.

"We won, Captain. Your death amounts the same as your life."

Images of headlines about the disappearance of Captain America and America's Sweetheart.

"A zero sum."

Suddenly, Steve lashed out and broke the screen of the computer in front of him, silencing the Swiss scientist. Rage coursed through his veins. He'd been ok until Zola had shown the headline that talked about Emma. If Zola knew about those headlines, he knew about Emma.

"As I was saying." Zola's face appeared on another screen.

"What's on this drive?" Steve demanded authoritatively.

"Project Insight requires…insight. So I wrote an algorithm," Zola explained.

"What kind of algorithm?" Grace asked. "What does it do?"

"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it," Zola said calmly. Steve immediately leapt into action, flinging his shield back behind him to catch the doors of the elevator as they remained shut.

"Steve." Grace's voice was hard, her eyes bright and alert as she sensed the planes. "We've got ships coming in. Weapons. Short-range holistic. Two minutes tops."

"Who fired it?" Steve asked incredulously. Natasha looked up from her phone, the device beeping wildly in her hand as she looked at the information Grace had just relayed to them.

"SHIELD," she said.

"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain. Admit it, it's better this way," Zola said. Steve began wildly looking around for a place to take shelter in while Grace grabbed the flash, and Natasha began calculating the time. "Oh, Captain. One last thing."

Steve paused and looked up at the computer face.

"I think this mission is a bit more personal for you than you realized," Zola said coolly. Images of headlines about a plane crash that killed a married couple but not the little 11 year old girl on board came across the screen. "You see, your lovely girlfriend Emma Carroll's parents were believers in our mission."

"No," Steve said, his stomach jolting.

"Oh, yes," Zola said happily. "Thomas and Leah Carroll? They were faithful. They were HYDRA."


	7. Answers

**Shoutouts to thecruelworldwelivein, LilyHiddleston96, lovefairytail007, thedivergentcake, Layla347, fluttershypegasus1, stuffoflegends, NikNaks, Jo, Guest, bellapaige88, lilybear3121, RL, hiddlestonlover213, jdho2, and KD Skywalker (recover from your surgery! I hope you're doing ok!) for reviewing!**

**Heh heh heh. How was that for a cliffhanger? I've actually been planning that from the beginning of _Shaped by Things to Come, _believe it or not, so I've been dying to get to this to reveal all the big news. I've literally been planning it since that story, and I'm super glad we've gotten to get to this point. In this chapter, we get a lot more character development and relationship establishment.  
**

**I know there are still more questions and explanations, and those will continue to unfold as the story unfolds. Thank you guys so much for being so supportive and patient with me. You all are the best, and I absolutely love the amount of reviews you've left. This story has gotten to 51 followers, so yay!**

**Enjoy! =)**

* * *

Chapter 7

"You're wrong." Steve felt his stomach drop all the way to the floor.

"Do not worry, Captain. All the answers have been right in front of you, and you have simply neglected to notice them." Zola's voice sounded amused, as if he were happy that this had happened to Steve.

"Steve, we need to go!" Grace shouted, breaking Steve out of his mind.

_No_, Steve thought. _No, no, no_. This couldn't be right. Emma's parents couldn't have been HYDRA. They couldn't have. Anyone who could have raised someone like Emma couldn't have been the kind of people who would give into this…this evil way of thinking. HYDRA restricted freedom; they held you back instead of letting you free—they'd killed people and started wars for years in order to gain full and total control. Emma couldn't have come from people who had believed in doing things like that.

Steve's heart rose up into his throat as he tried to force his body to move. "Tell me more."

"I am afraid I cannot. We are both of us…out of time." Zola's words held a finality that Steve had been dreading. Suddenly, he caught sight of the grate on the floor, and he lunged towards it, yanking the metal slats up to reveal an air duct down below that was big enough to fit him, Grace, and Natasha.

"Go!" Grace shouted, and right as all three leapt towards the gaping hole in the floor, the room exploded.

* * *

Emma was dreaming.

She knew she was dreaming because nothing made sense. She was standing in SHIELD Headquarters, and Steve was in front of her. However, this wasn't the Steve Rogers she knew. The Steve Rogers in front of her was wearing his very first Captain America uniform—the same one he'd worn when he'd toured the United States selling bonds. But that wasn't all.

The Steve staring back at her was pre-Serum Steve.

It was odd for her to look at him level in the eye without needing to look up at him—it was odd for her to see him look so ill and self-conscious while also exuding an unusual sense of confidence that she wouldn't have expected from him. The uniform clearly wasn't the exact same one that post-Serum Steve had worn because this uniform fit pre-Serum Steve just right.

"Steve?" she asked in surprise.

"Ma'am?" Steve frowned and stared at her in shock; he looked mildly flustered that she'd spoken to him, as if he were surprised to see her there in front of him.

"Baby, it's me. It's Emma," she said. Steve's light blue eyes gazed back at her from his slightly sunken in eye sockets.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid I don't know you," he said politely. Emma frowned, and she tilted her head to the side.

"What?" she asked in disbelief. "Steve, it's me."

"Have I met you before?" Steve asked, squinting his eyes to study her a bit closer.

"Ma'am, may I interest you in a dance?" A new voice came from out of nowhere, and suddenly, the familiar face of Bucky Barnes came striding out from a corner of the office that she and Steve were standing in. Emma couldn't help gaping—the man was supposed to be dead, and there he was offering her a dance in front of the man that she very much planned on spending the rest of her life with.

"Um…are you Bucky Barnes?" she asked.

"James Buchanan Barnes—yes, ma'am, that's me," Bucky replied with an easy, charming smile. Emma paused, and she glanced back at Steve, noticing the way he watched the two of them with a resigned look on his face; his face told her that he'd watched this scene play out in front of him thousands of times before, and it wasn't a scene he particularly enjoyed viewing time and time again.

"I'm here for Steve," she slowly replied. Bucky's dark brown eyebrows shot up as he didn't even bother to hide the surprised look on his face. Steve didn't bother to hide his own shocked look, and he stared at Emma with his lips slighted parted, stunned.

"Ma'am?" he asked.

"This is one ridiculously weird dream," Emma muttered to herself. Steve frowned, and then she sighed and shook her head. "Whatever. This doesn't matter. It's a dream."

"Yeah, I'd say so," Steve agreed with wide eyes. Emma looked back at him and studied him. He was skinny and almost kind of strange-looking, his head not looking as though it fit on his body, but she could see the handsome features that made him who he was. The only thing he really had going against him was just that he was skinny and short. Beneath that, Emma could see all the features that had attracted her to him in the first place, and it broke her heart to see how stunned he was by the fact that she was talking to him.

She was about to speak to Steve when suddenly, Bucky pulled out a gun from his holster, and he pointed it at Emma. Everything seemed to happen in a blur after that. Steve jumped in front of her, and for a second, Emma was terrified that he'd been hit. Her heart jerked painfully beneath her ribcage as fear struck her. Had Steve been hit? What if _she'd _been hit? She never got to know the answer.

* * *

Emma woke up with a gasp, quickly drawing air into her lungs. She could see darkness around her, but she didn't recognize where she was. The confusion lasted only a millisecond, however, and thankfully, everything rushed back into her mind. She wasn't at home—she wasn't with Steve. She was in Annapolis, Maryland in Colin's house. She was in her ex-boyfriend's house.

For the millionth time in the past 24 hours, she noticed that her hands were shaking again. She slowly breathed in and then breathed out as she tried to calm herself down. She'd had plenty of weird dreams in her life, but this one was probably one of the strangest. She didn't know what it meant, and she wasn't entirely sure that she wanted to.

The urge to call Steve was just as strong as it'd ever been, but her resolve was the weakest it'd ever been. She looked over at the nightstand where she'd left her cell phone, and she thought about turning it on. She didn't know what Steve was doing or whether he was safe right now, but it was just the latter thought alone that became the reason she didn't give in and call him.

She'd always been so proud of him for who he was as a human, a man, and a superhero. She'd always been so relaxed and understanding and supportive of his role as Captain America, a symbol of hope for the nation. But for the first time, she really thought about what he did and all the shit she put up with as a result of it. Before now, she'd created an illusion in her mind of who Steve Rogers was and who Captain America was; but now for the first time, she truly saw the realities, and she didn't like what she saw.

* * *

"Grace, give me a hand," Steve gasped out as he pushed against the weight of the heavy concrete above him. He couldn't see Grace, but he could feel her foot digging into his shin as she readjusted herself. Suddenly, the weight got much lighter, and then it was gone as soon as it was there. Grace's face was covered in blood, but Steve couldn't find any cuts or anything on her. He stared at her, and she looked up at him, the irises of her eyes black beneath her colored contacts to show that she was in survival mode.

Beneath him and somewhere off to his right, the slight, dazed moan of Natasha caught his ear. Coughing, Steve looked down at her and saw the barely conscious agent struggling to remain awake.

"Secure the perimeter," Steve said breathlessly to Grace as he bent down to pick Natasha up.

"SHIELD's got more planes coming in. We need to be gone now," Grace said urgently.

"Alright, then tell me where to go!" Steve shouted over his shoulder, lifting Natasha into his arms.

"Left!" Grace called back. "Go left! We need to lift another car!"

"Think I haven't already thought of that?" Steve called to her as they began to run. His heart was racing, and he felt as though he couldn't breathe deeply enough. Dust swirled around in his lungs, and he had to remind himself to be grateful for these dust-filled lungs instead of his old asthmatic lungs.

"Keep running," Grace murmured as she slowed to an even run behind him. "They're still scouring the sight, I think. I can sense them staying in the same spot."

The three Avengers moved silently and swiftly across the fields surrounding Camp Lehigh. Steve barely noticed Natasha's dead weight in his arms; she hadn't shown much life after having been knocked out, but Grace didn't seem to be terribly concerned, and he knew that Grace would be able to tell if there were something seriously wrong with Natasha.

"Here." Grace suddenly slowed to a walk as they entered a neighborhood through the back way. Steve didn't know how long they'd been running, but he barely felt winded. He watched Grace easily move towards an old school but still sporty little car that he never would have chosen, but she'd managed to break into it and hotwire it in under 10 seconds, so he was impressed.

"Is this inconspicuous?" he asked, crossing towards her with Natasha still in his arms. He waited for her to open the backseat, and once he'd carefully placed the redhead in the backseat, Grace answered.

"SHIELD knows I love flashy new cars—bad habit I've picked up from Tony—so they'll either be looking for something the total opposite—what you drive—or what I always drive. So this is a bit of a nice compromise," she explained happily. Steve began to move towards the driver's seat when she stopped him and promptly shook her head. "No way. Passenger. If we're driving a getaway car, we both know I'm better suited for that."

Steve wished that he could have found an argument, but he didn't. Instead, he calmly walked to the passenger's side and got in. As Grace began moving the car into Reverse and backing out of the parallel parking job the owner had initially put it in, Steve glanced back at Natasha.

"She ok?" he asked.

"Yeah," Grace said without looking back. "She got a bit of a rough knock to the head, but she's otherwise ok. Doesn't even have a concussion. Good job getting her down into that air duct in time."

"What about you?" Steve asked. "You make it?"

"Not all the way," Grace honestly replied. She lifted a hand and gestured to the blood on her face. "Where do you think all this came from?"

"Wait, that—that came from the explosion?" Steve asked incredulously. "You don't have a mark on you."

"Thank you, Extremis," Grace drily answered. "So where are we going? Have anywhere in mind?"

"No," Steve said. His first instinct was to find where Emma was. That's what his intuition told him to do right away, but he knew he needed to look at the bigger picture. He needed to figure out how to take HYDRA down before they hurt her or anyone else. And then a thought came to his mind. "Yes."

"Where?" she asked.

"D.C.," Steve said. Grace shot him a look with her judgmental eyes.

"You sure that's a good idea?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure. We need to get back. Attack. We also need a place to lie low for a few days until we figure out what we're going to do."

"So where are we going to lie low?"

"Ever heard of Sam Wilson?"

"Sam Wilson? Who the fuck is Sam Wilson?"

"Em and I met him in the park several days ago. He's trustworthy." Steve felt lame about the fact that he could only describe Sam as trustworthy, especially when he didn't know the guy all that well. Grace gave him another judgmental look, though this time her expression was tinged with disbelief.

"You met a guy several days ago, and you think he's trustworthy?" she asked. "Steve, it's not the '40s anymore. You can't just go around talking to strangers."

"I know," Steve answered. "But I know he's a good guy. We've got to trust him. There's no one else."

"Where do you think Emma is?" Grace asked suddenly. Steve felt a headache coming on, and he propped his elbow up on the windowsill of the car and put his forehead into his hand.

"I don't know," he honestly replied. "She could be anywhere."

"Think she went to Connecticut?" Grace asked.

"No. She's too smart to do that. She knows she'd be endangering her family if she did that," he replied quietly.

"Good. I was hoping you'd say that," Grace said. "Have you gone over any tips for lying low? How to stay hidden from people who want to find you?"

"No," Steve said, his voice reluctant. "I never thought we'd have to do this. She's a nurse. If people want to hurt me, they'll hurt me. I never—"

"Steve, the first place anyone would go to hurt you is through Emma. You know that," Grace interrupted gently. Steve knew that she was right, even though he didn't want to admit it. He didn't want to admit that if Emma were caught because of a rookie mistake in going into hiding, it would be his fault. Again, he was reminded of how most everything bad that had happened to her had been because of him.

"Did you know her parents were mixed up in something dirty?" he asked suddenly, looking over at Grace with calm eyes. Grace frowned, and she shook her head as she gave him a look that came across as mildly insulted that he would think that.

"No," she said. "Of course not. I would've said something to you. All I knew was that they were SHIELD, and they were killed. Emma on board."

"It just doesn't make sense," Steve said, parroting words and feelings he'd had several months before when discovering the truth about Emma's parents. "Why was she on that plane? The plane was an undercover SHIELD plane. Em shouldn't have even been on board."

"Well, since we're learning so many secrets about SHIELD, maybe now we'll learn this one," Grace said reassuringly. "With the digital age, nothing stays a secret forever."

"I told Emma I was going to get answers for her, but I never would have expected this," Steve replied in a quiet voice. "HYDRA."

"Steve, we'll get answers. We will. I promise you. I told you back when Em's accident happened that I'd help you, and I'm still with you now, ok?" Grace asked. Steve looked at her, and he nodded.

"You checked in with Tony yet?" he asked to change the subject. He watched Grace's face go still, and then she shook her head.

"No," she honestly replied. "I should. But I shouldn't. He's going to flip a shit next time he talks to me. I don't blame him, though. I'd do the same to him."

"Is everything ok with you two?" Steve asked. Grace nodded.

"Yeah. We're just still trying to get things all figured out. You know…the wedding, Tony figuring out what to do with his suits, PTSD…the whole nine yards," she said.

"PTSD," Steve repeated in surprise. He looked at Grace sharply. "You never mentioned any of that."

"Oh, well, he doesn't really mention it, either. He's been seeing a therapist. It's good. For him. For me. For the both of us." Grace didn't look at him.

"The guy we're going to see in D.C. deals with people suffering from PTSD," Steve said.

"Is that how you know him?" Grace asked. Good ol' Grace Marks. Never beating around the bush.

"No," Steve replied. "He was running in the park, and…" He trailed off, realizing the story wasn't all that interesting in the long run of things. He leaned his head back against the headrest of the seat and looked out the window. "It's going to be a long drive back."

"Yeah, well…we'll make it. We always do."

"Do we?"

"Yeah. We do."

* * *

The last person Sam Wilson was thinking of as he downed a swallow of orange juice was Steve Rogers. In fact, Sam was thinking about the receptionist at the VA and how yesterday morning, she'd smiled extra wide at him. Or so he thought. Maybe. He wasn't sure if he were putting too much thought into it, but he was pretty sure that she'd smiled at him bigger than she usually did. Or maybe she'd just been having a good day.

The knock on his glass backdoor caught his attention, thereby banishing his internal argument with himself over whether or not he was overthinking a damn smile from a cute girl. Perplexed, he lowered his carton of orange juice and crossed to the back, pulling the blinds up and looking outside. There in his backyard was Steve Rogers, redheaded Natasha Romanoff and amber-eyed Grace Marks beside the Super Soldier on either side. All three looked scuffed up and exhausted, dust marks and dark circles under their eyes. Grace Marks had dried blood all over her, but she was the only one who didn't look as beat up.

'Hey, man," Sam greeted.

"I'm sorry about this," Steve said, his voice serious and sincere. "We need a place to lay low."

"Everyone we know is trying to kill us," Natasha added. Sam's eyes flicked over to Grace.

Grace blinked at him."It's true."

Sam paused for a second as he glanced between all three of them, taking in their exhausted faces and desperate eyes. And then he spoke. "Not everyone."

He stepped back and let the three Avengers come in. As they walked by him, the former soldier looked around behind them to see if anyone had followed them. His Army training came back to him immediately, making it feel as though he'd never even left. Some things and habits about the Army would leave him, but other things were so much a part of him that he would never forget.

Steve watched Sam close the door behind him and lock it before pulling the blinds back down. When Sam turned around to face them, Steve decided to speak before anyone else did.

"Before we explain anything, would you do me a huge favor?" Steve asked. Solemnly, Sam nodded without any hesitation.

"Of course," he said. And then Steve said the words he never thought he'd utter.

"Can I use your Instagram?"

* * *

When Emma finally decided to turn her phone on, there was only one notification that particularly interested her. She usually kept her Push Notifications off, but she kept the ones for Instagram messaging on, so when she saw that swilson_falcon had sent her a message on Instagram, she pulled up her account to see what he'd said.

In her Inbox, she found a message.

**So u like eagles? 301-928-3382**

Emma stopped breathing. She knew exactly what was going on.

About three weeks back, Steve had started getting extra paranoid over her safety, and he'd insisted that they come up with some kind of safe word, some kind of code to let the other know that everything was ok if they got separated.

* * *

"Fine. Eagle," Emma said, her voice slightly bored as she pulled her wallet out of her bag in the middle of the grocery store.

"No, that's too obvious," Steve replied. "You always go with the freedom thing, anyway."

"Nope. Eagle." Emma looked up at him with her large sea-colored eyes to show him that she was serious. Steve sighed and put his hands on his hips.

"You never make things easy for me," he said, though his tone was soft. She lifted her eyebrows at him and smirked.

"Seriously? I taught you how to use the Internet. I think I make _plenty _of things easy for you." She pulled her credit card out and put it back in her bag as she started walking towards the check out line, Steve following her with their small cart of groceries. "I like eagle. We'll use eagle."

"Fine. I'll agree to eagle."

* * *

The memory hit Emma with such force she had to consciously remind herself to take a breath. Without wasting any time, she jumped up from the dining room table where she was. Colin looked up at her, suddenly concerned.

"Is everything ok?" he asked. "Em?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Can I use your phone?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah." Colin nodded towards a cordless phone on the wall. "That one's free."

"Awesome. Thanks." Emma hurried towards it and darted off into the hall. She knew that she was being rude by just kind of brushing Colin off without telling him anything, but she couldn't wait any longer. If this message from Sam were what she thought it was, she needed to figure out what was going on as soon as possible. She'd turned on the TV that morning to hear that Camp Lehigh in New Jersey had been bombed by SHIELD once SHIELD had received confirmation that Steve, Natasha, and Grace had been there. It appeared that the three had escaped, but she needed to know for sure.

Glancing down at the number on her screen, she punched in the digits to Sam's number, and she waited for the phone to ring.

* * *

"Hello?" Steve answered immediately when he saw an unfamiliar number pop up on Sam's home phone.

"Steve?" Emma's voice filled his ear, and he closed his eyes with relief.

"Oh, God, Em, are you ok?" he breathed into the phone.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm ok. Are you? Steve, what's going on?" Emma's voice shook, and it broke his heart. Rubbing his eyes with his free hand, he kept Sam's phone pressed to his face, the glass cool against his skin.

"I'm ok. We're all ok. I'm at Sam's in D.C. right now," he said softly, attempting to the calm tone she always had with him on a day to day basis. "Where are you?"

"I'm in Maryland. I'm at a friend from college's house. You're in D.C.? What are you doing there?" Emma asked.

"It's a long story. A really long story. I swear I'll tell you everything when I see you again. I don't have much time, but Emma. Listen to me, sweetheart. I'm going to give you an address. It's Sam's house," he said.

"What? Ok. Ok, I'll write it down. Why do I—why do I need his address?"

"SHIELD's hunting you down just as much as they're hunting me. We've got to keep moving. _You've _got to keep moving. Come back to D.C., and we'll figure out what to do from there. They can't find you if you're with me," Steve said.

"Ok…ok, what's the address?" Emma asked. He heard her scrambling with something in the background as he told her the address and had her repeat it back to him. "How long until you think they catch up with me?"

"I have no idea," Steve replied. He was glad that he'd decided to take the call in a room away from Grace, Natasha, and Sam's prying eyes. Not that they would have been prying to be rude, but he was just glad to have these few moments of alone time on the phone with Emma, as ridiculous as that sounded. "But you need to keep moving. Get here as quickly as you can. Don't take the Metro. Ten bucks says SHIELD's monitoring it like crazy."

"Ok. I think I have a way back. I'll get there as soon as possible. I'll show up eventually. Ok?"

"Ok. I love you, honey. I miss you so much." Steve closed his eyes as he pictured how she must look right now. He could see her with some stranger's phone pressed to her ear, her own eyes closed as she spoke to him.

"I miss you, too," she said quietly. "Steve…I'm scared."

"I know. But you can do this. Do you hear me? You can do this. You're strong." Steve felt a lump rise to his throat at her admission. With everything they'd been through, she'd never told him she was scared. She'd told him she was worried before, but she'd never expressed any fear before, and it completely tore him in two to hear her say she was afraid.

"I'm trying," she said. He heard her take in a breath and then exhale it. "Ok. Ok, I'll see you soon."

"I know I've said this to you a thousand times, but be careful. I want you here in one piece, ok?" Steve tried to smile to make his tone light.

"Same for you," Emma said back. "You better be ok when I get to you."

"I will be. I promise."

"And I will be, too. Promise."

"I'll tell you everything that's happening once you're here. That's also a promise."

"I'm holding you to it."

"Sam says hi, by the way."

"Tell him I say hi back. Also thank him for liking my last picture."

"Will do. Be safe."

"I love you." Emma's voice was light, but it was serious. Steve smiled, a tiny but genuine smile.

"I love you, too. I'll see you soon. Not soon enough. But soon."

"Ok. I'm leaving right away. Bye."

Steve hung up before he could think of anything else to say to keep her on the line with him; if he'd had his way, he would have kept her on the phone the entire time she got back to D.C., just to make sure that she was safe, but he knew that that was impractical. Besides, he had plenty of business of his own to do while he waited for her to get there.

He slowly got up and walked back out into the living room area of Sam's house. Sam, Grace, and Natasha looked up at him as he walked back in.

"How'd it go?" Grace asked.

"Fine," Steve replied. "She said she's leaving right now."

"Good," Grace said with an affirmative nod.

"Well, until then, you guys might as well wash up if you want. I've got some breakfast going. How long do you think until she's here?" Sam asked, standing up and walking towards the kitchen as he glanced back over his shoulder to hear Steve's answer.

"Maryland. So that's about an hour away. Not too far," Steve said.

"Perfect," Natasha spoke up. "Won't be that long at all."

Steve wanted to disagree, but as usual, he just kept his mouth shut.

* * *

The car ride wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Colin played music that he knew Emma liked, remembering that she liked John Mayer—even if she thought he was a douche—and Norah Jones. She was surprised that he still had these songs on his iPod, but she didn't bring it up to him.

"Thank you for everything," she said, breaking a 15 minute silence as she looked out the window. "It means more than you know."

"No. Thank you," Colin returned. "I'm glad I got to see you again."

"Catching up for old times' sake," Emma lamely replied, not knowing what else to say. When she'd told him that Steve had given her an address to go to, Colin hadn't hesitated in offering to drive her. Realistically, Emma knew that that was her safest bet. Public transportation meant running the risk of possibly being recognized, and she didn't think she had it in her to steal a car—hell, she didn't even know _how _to steal a car. So when Colin had answered, Emma had thought about denying it, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and that was how she found herself in the car on the highway with Colin behind the driver's wheel.

"Are you sure it's going to be safe?" Colin asked. "I mean, you said the government's out to get him. The both of you."

"I'm not safe no matter where I go," Emma murmured, knowing the truth of it all too well. "I might as well be unsafe with someone who knows how to be unsafe."

"You saying I don't know how to live on the edge?" Colin's voice was tinged with humor, and Emma smiled.

"Sorry, I forgot that you're a total badass," she replied.

"There we go. Couldn't forget that one now," he said back. He glanced over at her, and she glanced back at him. It still amazed her that he looked the same—she remembered how she'd once been so in love with him, so focused on how they would end up together. While she'd believed at the time that she would marry him and spend the rest of her life with him, she'd never pinned all her hopes on the fantasy, something that had wound up being good in the end for her. The break up had been easier, and she'd healed quicker.

The only thing that was really different about Colin was that he didn't look as innocent as he once had; she hadn't expected him to, and the change didn't surprise her at all. Being in the medical field meant that you saw things you could never forget, and she knew that firsthand. She couldn't imagine the kinds of things that Colin had seen, the kinds of patients he'd had to change him. And just for a moment, she wished that he were his old self. More innocent, more free, and less wise.

"Seriously. I'm so thankful," Emma said.

"I know," Colin quietly replied. "Just…keep in touch. Ok?"

"Yeah. I can do that." She smiled and turned her gaze forward to the window shield. "Look, we're saying goodbye, and we're not even there yet."

"Is it goodbye?" Colin asked wryly. "Will it be another six years before I see you again?"

"I don't know," Emma honestly answered. "I don't even know if I'm going to make it through the end of the day."

She gave a small laugh to show that she was joking, but Colin didn't laugh. Instead, he turned and gave her a hard look. "You'll be ok. You always have been. You've never needed anyone to take care of you before."

"I'm just taking it one minute at a time now," Emma said softly. She looked down at her comfortable, worn pair of jeans. "That's all I really can do."

She wouldn't know how much those words would come to ring true.

* * *

Steve finished washing his hands in the sink, and he shook them to preliminarily dry them. Natasha and Grace had already showered and were sitting in the bedroom that connected to the bathroom. Grace had gotten rid of her colored contacts long ago, and she was steadily gazing at him with her strange, unique eyes as he crossed towards the door way that led into the bedroom.

"You guys ok?" Steve asked. He stood in the frame and looked at both Natasha and Grace. Natasha glanced up at him, her face clean of make up and her hair natural and curly from having just been washed. Grace looked away, and she wrapped her arms tighter around her knees.

"Yeah," Natasha vaguely answered. Steve finished drying his hands on the towel he was holding, and he tossed it to the side before crossing into the room. Grace still wouldn't look at him, but Natasha's green eyes remained focused on him. The redheaded spy kept towel-drying her hair, even when Steve sat down on the bed across from her, the same bed that Grace was on.

"What's going on?" His voice was gentle and concerned, encouraging even. Supportive.

Natasha stared at him with a clearly disturbed face, her red eyebrows drawing in together the tiniest bit. "When I first joined SHIELD, I thought I was going straight. But I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA." She took a breath and looked down. "I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but…" Her voice trailed off, and she gave a half-shrug. Finally, she looked back up at Steve. "I guess I can't tell the difference anymore."

"There's a chance you might be in the wrong business," Steve said, quoting the same words she'd said to him the day before. Natasha exhaled sharply through her nose in an expressionless laugh, and Steve gave her the tiniest hint of a smile. Suddenly, the look on the Russian's face changed, and she stared at him as if she were seeing him for the first time.

"I owe you," she said quietly. Looking down and frowning, Steve shook his head dismissively.

"It's ok," he said. Little did he know that she was thinking of Clint as she said those words.

"If it was the other way around, and it was down to me to save your life, and you would be honest with me—would you trust me to do it?" She searched his face with her intense, bright green eyes, and he stared coolly and calmly back at her with his icy blue ones.

"I would now," he said seriously with a nod. He paused as Natasha's face grew shocked and then composed as she pulled herself together. "And I'm always honest."

Natasha shook some hair out of her face. "Well, you seem pretty chipper for someone who just found out they died for nothing."

"Well," Steve said with a sigh. "Guess I just like to know who I'm fighting."

"I made breakfast," Sam said suddenly, peeking into the room that all three Avengers were sitting in. He glanced at each of them. "If you guys…eat that…sort of thing."

"Sounds great," Natasha said. Her vulnerable, surprised face was gone, and she was wearing a cool, smooth expression that never would have let Steve in on how she'd just opened herself up to him. She stood up and glanced back at Steve and Grace. "You guys coming?"

"I'll be out in a second," Steve replied. He watched Natasha leave, and then he turned his gaze back to Grace. "What's up with you?"

"Nothing," Grace murmured, though her tone and her face was the total opposite of what she was telling him. Steve turned to face her more directly.

"Talk to me," he said. "I'm the team therapist today."

Grace turned her amber eyes towards him, and she pressed her lips together as she inhaled and then exhaled. He couldn't read much of her expression, but he knew her well enough to know that she was considering whether or not to open up to him the way Natasha had. "Nat basically summed it all up."

"You've been quiet since two nights ago. We didn't even know about HYDRA then," he said. Grace kept her eyes on him, and the corner of her mouth twitched.

"Fury was the one who thought it'd be good to train me as a SHIELD agent," she said, her voice steady but quiet. "When I was first brought into SHIELD…they were going to do tests on me. Experiment. Try to figure out what made me tick and how I'd survived a shot to the brain. He stopped all of that. Overrode it. Said I should be trained to control my survival instincts. Become an agent."

"I didn't know that," Steve said. Grace nodded, and then she looked away from him.

"Yeah. I spent a lot of time in isolation because I was pretty dangerous. I nearly killed Nat, remember. But he still believed they could get through to me. He and Coulson both did." Her voice was a straight monotone now to avoid betraying any hint of emotion.

"He's done a lot for all of us," Steve agreed. "You especially."

"Anyone else would've killed me. They probably should've, too, considering all the money SHIELD had to spend keeping me there. CIA, FBI…they would've just killed me on the spot once they'd found out they couldn't test me without me freaking the fuck out on them." She tried to smile, but it fell flat. "I'm just…being emotional."

Even in Grace's serious moments, the irony didn't escape her, and a genuine smile passed over her face. Steve returned the smile, and he found her smile widening as she smiled back.

"Imagine that. You being emotional," he said. Grace sat up a little straighter, and she dropped her arms.

"Speaking of emotional, how are you holding up?" she asked. "You're so busy taking care of all of us. How are _you_?"

"Me?" Steve shrugged and shook his head. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not," Grace immediately answered. "Even if I couldn't read people so well, I would've known you were lying your ass off to me. You're not fine."

"So why ask?" Steve countered, but he was still smiling. Grace offered up a tiny shrug.

"I thought it'd be nice to give you the option of giving me the truth," she said. "But I don't blame you. You're thinking about Emma?"

"You know me too well," Steve drily answered.

"She'll be safe here. Everything will be ok. _She'll _be ok," Grace said in a reassuring voice.

"I hope." Steve glanced down at his hands and then back up at his best friend and teammate.

"You really should ask her to marry you," Grace suggested genuinely. "You're basically already married."

"I'm going to," he said. And just like that, the thoughts and the decisions that had been worrying him even before this whole mess with HYDRA had started were out in the air. Grace beamed at him, a genuine, rare Grace Marks smile that showed him she trusted him more than any amount of words ever could.

"Good," she said softly. "I'm glad. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be with her."

Steve laughed gently, and he shook his head. "I'll never deserve her, and that's the honest to God truth. But I'd like to spend the rest of my life trying to."

Grace rolled her eyes dramatically, and she finally lowered her arms and legs fully onto the bed before scooting to the edge. "You're like a ridiculously cheesy romance novel, and the worst part about it is that you're 100% serious when you say all that shit."

"Yeah, I am," Steve answered, his tone mildly but jokingly offended that she would think anything differently. "I've still got my 1940s morals when it comes to romance." He stood up and nodded towards the living room. "Come on. I smell breakfast."

Grace stood up and followed him out to the kitchen. She inhaled deeply and smiled behind him, letting out a loud sigh. "I smell bacon."

"You smelled correctly," Sam said cheerfully. "Come on and help yourself. I'm not trying to brag, but I make some damn good breakfast."

"He does," Natasha spoke up from her spot at the dining room table. "He really does."

"Too good for me to pass up." Grace eagerly crossed to the table and sat down. "Though really, any breakfast will be better than Tony's."

"Stark makes bad breakfast?" Natasha asked. Grace's eyes widened, and she nodded seriously.

"Yep," she said. "He can make an amazing omelet, but that's it. Otherwise, he's total shit in the kitchen."

Steve followed behind her to the table and sat down on the other side of the two women. His eyes glanced up to Sam, and he saw the former soldier peek out the curtain in the kitchen to the street out front.

"Hey, guys," he said. "A car just pulled up out front."

Steve's body tensed, and he could see Natasha and Grace getting ready to spring into a defensive position.

"Who is it?" Natasha asked.

"Emma and some white boy," Sam replied in a candid tone, meriting a snicker from Grace and a grin from Natasha. Steve even managed to crack a grin, but he was too busy focusing on the first part of Sam's response.

Emma. She was here.


	8. Plan

**Shoutouts to lilybear3121, Layla347, Jo, lovefairytail007, NikNaks, thecruelworldwelivein, bellapaige88, RL, DessieDear, stuffoflegends, Johanna Ershova, and MsRose91 for reviewing! Love getting your feedback!**

**Sorry for how long it took to update! I've been so busy, and I'm trying my hardest! As always, let me know what you think. I absolutely love reading what you guys think is going to happen and what you like and dislike.**

**Just as a heads up, there is a sex scene in this chapter, so the rating is no longer T. It is now M. Hopefully you guys like this chapter (other than the smut ;D) because it's a chapter I've been waiting to write for a long time. You'll know what I mean when you get there ;)**

**Keep reviewing!**

**Enjoy! =)**

* * *

Chapter 8

When Colin pulled up to the address Steve had given Emma, Emma felt torn in two. On one hand, she couldn't wait to get inside and see Steve, to know that he was safe. But on the other hand, she almost felt bad about leaving Colin. Despite the awkward tension that had existed between them at first—and even now still a little a bit—she had enjoyed his company. That being said, she'd wished a thousand times that she'd been somewhere else other than his house, but now as she sat in the car beside him, the car pulling to a stop, she realized that she was actually glad she'd gone to him.

She'd known that he wouldn't turn her away; she'd known that he'd let her in without putting up too much of a fight. She would have been lying if she said that she didn't feel guilty as a result of using him like that because she wasn't the kind of person who used people for what they could do for her. It was so out of character for her that she'd barely been able to go through with it. And yet she had.

"I can't thank you enough," Emma said, breaking the silence that had settled between them.

"Don't," Colin said gently. "It's the least I could do. After everything."

"Well…thank you." Emma looked up at him and met his eyes. "You've done more for me than you know."

"Just don't put up with any shit, ok?" Colin's voice was sincere and worried, and a frown came over his face as he gazed at her. "Don't put yourself in any danger."

"Too late." Emma offered up a tiny smile and a shrug in an attempt at a joke, but Colin didn't smile back.

"Emma. I don't want to turn the TV on to hear that you're dead. I really don't," he said. Emma paused, and she finally listened. She'd heard similar words from her family and her friends, but she'd always brushed it off. But the way Colin was looking at her, and the way his voice was so serious made her stop, and she listened.

"Ok," she said quietly. "I won't put myself in danger."

Relief passed over Colin's face, and he nodded once. "Ok. Good."

Silence. Emma looked away and then back at him. "Thanks, Colin. I know I keep saying it, but…thank you."

"Anytime." Colin paused, and then he smiled. "I'll see you around. Keep in touch."

"You, too." Emma thought that she should reach out and maybe touch his hand or something, but she didn't. Instead, she smiled back at him, and then she slipped out of the car before she could say anything that would prolong the awkward moment with Colin any longer. She knew she would miss him—however, she would miss him the way she missed a memory: fondly but not desperately. She allowed herself a last goodbye to him, turning over her shoulder and waving before she walked all the way up to Sam's door.

Emma's heart was in her throat as she turned away from Colin, a reminder of her past, and turned towards Steve, her present and her future. Pushing the last lingering thoughts of Colin and the guilt that surrounded her decision in showing up at his door, she lifted her hand and knocked on the door. Almost immediately, the door opened, and there was Sam Wilson.

"Hello, hello, Miss Carroll. Come on in!" Sam greeted with a big grin. Emma felt warmth come over her at the sight of his smile. Even though she didn't know Sam all that well, she could tell that he just had one of those smiles that always brought out smiles on other people's faces.

"Sam, how are you?" she asked. She might have been dying to see Steve, but she could at least keep her manners around her since she was so close to seeing him. She could practically feel her heart leaping around inside her chest with anticipation.

"I'm just fine." Sam stepped back from the door and let Emma walk in. He shut it behind her as Emma took a careful look around his place; it looked like the kind of place he would own. It was neat, but it was also masculine and showed signs of belonging to a bachelor. "There's someone who's going to be happy as shit to see you." He tilted his head to the side as if he were looking at someone or something hidden. "Coast is clear. Door's closed."

The next few seconds happened in a blur. Emma nearly missed Steve come out from around the corner, but she caught a flash of blond hair, and then she felt arms wrap around her. She found her whole body tensed, caught up in the emotions she was feeling as it hit her that Steve was there, and he was ok. Suddenly and unexpectedly, tears filled her grey-green eyes, and she felt the hot burn of them behind her eyelids.

"You're ok," Steve said.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm ok," Emma replied, her voice shaky as she tried to keep her tears back. She didn't usually cry over a lot, but in the past 48 hours, she'd produced a lot more tears than she probably had in a year. "You're ok, too."

"I promised, didn't I?" Steve pulled back, his blue eyes bright, and he kissed her on the forehead before pulling her back into him. He closed his eyes and slowly exhaled. "Always keep my promises."

"I've got breakfast," Sam piped up. Emma pulled back from Steve, though she very much didn't want to, and she turned to look at him. As she brought herself back to the present and realized that Steve was not, in fact, the only person in the room with her, she caught sight of Grace and Natasha now seated at the kitchen table with bacon on their plates.

"Hey, Em," Grace greeted, lifting her piece of bacon in a salute.

"Hey," Emma said back, and she smiled at both of the expert assassins as they continued eating their breakfast from their spots in the kitchen. Sam's eyes darted back and forth between Emma and Steve, noticing how the couple didn't seem to be too eager to let go of each other quite yet. Steve had his arm around Emma's upper back and shoulder blades as if he were afraid someone or something were about to take her away from him, and she was holding onto him with a look on her face that showed she just didn't want to let him go just yet.

"You know, if you want to shower up, my shower's open. Steve still hasn't cleaned up yet, either," Sam spoke up. Emma looked at him and then up at Steve. Her eyes landed on the smudges of dirt still on his shoulders and arms, and she frowned.

"Is this from the Camp Lehigh explosion?" she asked. Steve nodded casually, and he looked over at Sam.

"I'll go wash up before breakfast," he said.

"If you want to keep him company, you can," Sam said innocently to Emma. When no one replied, he held his hands up in mock surrender. "Don't let me stand in the way of love. You lovebirds go get washed up or something like that. Breakfast will still be hot."

Steve shot Sam a confused look, but he quickly ushered Emma out of the living room area and back into the bedroom that he, Natasha, and Grace had been in earlier. Even though he was risking the chance of looking suspicious, he shut the door behind both him and Emma after they crossed into the room. Emma turned around to face him.

"Did he—"

"Yeah, I think he did," Steve interrupted with an amused smile before Emma could get her whispered question out. Smiling, he pulled her back into his arms and breathed in the smell of her hair. "I'm so glad you're ok. I was so worried."

"You shouldn't have been," Emma murmured back to him. "I was worried about _you_."

"I had no idea where you were." Steve pulled back and looked at her. "Who'd you stay with?"

"Friend from college. His name's Colin," Emma answered vaguely. She wasn't lying. Colin _was _a friend from college. She simply didn't want to get into who he was and what he'd been to her so long ago just then.

"Ok. And you're safe? You really were safe the whole time?" Steve asked, his eyebrows drawing in together in worry as his blue eyes ran over her to do a full body check.

"Yes. Baby, I'm fine. A little shaken up, but I'm fine. Nothing happened to me. Thankfully, I was lucky to get out right before SHIELD started monitoring the Metro and the Marc." Emma ran her hands over Steve's torso and around to his back. "You going to shower?"

"Yeah, I was just getting ready to after breakfast." Steve brushed his thumb over Emma's cheekbone, his eyes searching over her face. Suddenly, without warning, he grabbed her face and tilted her head back so her lips could meet his. He kissed her and relished in the feeling of being with her again, of having her mouth on his. And just as quickly as he'd kissed her, he pulled back with wide, almost fearful eyes. "I kissed Natasha."

Emma blinked. "What?"

"It was undercover. She told me PDA makes people uncomfortable, and Rumlow was about to spot us when we were on the run, so she grabbed me, and we kissed." Steve looked so worried that Emma couldn't help the relieved laugh that came over her. She shook her head and let her forehead fall against his chest as she laughed. "Em?"

"Steve, you're here. So you and Natasha had to kiss so Rumlow didn't drag your asses back to HQ. So what." She didn't know why she was finding this so funny, but in that moment, it seemed hilarious to her. She lifted one arm and hooked it around the back of Steve's neck to pull him down to kiss her again. "I couldn't care less. You're here, and you're ok, and that's all that matters to me right now."

"I love you," Steve murmured against her lips.

"I love you, too," Emma whispered back between kisses. She put one hand through his blond hair. 'I thought you were going to shower."

"So did I." Steve kissed her again.

"So do it."

"Ok." Steve started walking towards the bathroom, pulling Emma with him, and she paused for just half a second as she realized what Steve was suggesting. She looked at him and saw the look in his light blue eyes, the look that always made her knees weak and her stomach tighten. She and Steve were both in the bathroom together, and she barely noticed him shut the door behind them.

"Here?" she whispered curiously.

"Living on the edge a little," Steve replied.

"This is so unlike you." Emma kissed him hard as he fumbled behind him to turn on the shower.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures." Steve kissed her back. "Sam gave us permission, anyway. I think."

"True." Emma pulled back to lift her shirt up over her head as the sound of the shower filled the small bathroom. Steve was only in a white tank top and jeans, and she was in a loose, thin, grey sweater and black skinny jeans; thankfully, there wouldn't be too much fumbling in getting their clothes. When Steve turned around to face her, steam already starting to rise from inside the shower, he swallowed hard. His eyes drifted down towards her breasts and then back up to her face. He wanted to take this moment in, to remember her in front of him like this forever, but he didn't have the chance. Already pulling her jeans off, Emma looked up at him.

"Come on. We've got to be quick," she said. "Don't want to make them too suspicious."

"Em, we're going to walk out there with wet hair. It's going to be obvious," Steve answered with a smirk as he pulled his tank top off. "Is this disrespectful? Do you think this is disrespectful?"

"Honestly, at this point, I don't give a shit," Emma sighed as she looked over Steve's ridiculously perfect body. She watched him swiftly remove his jeans, his movements pure grace and ease, and she hooked her thumbs into her underwear and pushed down. Within seconds, they were both undressed and stepping into the shower together.

And Captain America did not waste time. As soon as the hot water hit their skin, Steve's body was against Emma's. He pulled her flush against his torso, and he kissed her as if it were the last time he'd ever get to kiss her. The water was running over the both of them, making it hard to get a good grasp on each other, but Emma was determined if nothing else. Her hands slipped from their hold on his arms, but she didn't stop touching him. She couldn't.

Suddenly, Steve's arms slipped under her thighs, and he lifted her up. A small, surprised sound released from between Emma's lips, but she didn't protest at all. She could already feel him hard between her legs, and she found her heart rate picking up more and more with each second. She'd known that she'd missed him over these past 24 hours, but she hadn't realized how much until that moment. She buried her face against his neck as he turned the both of them so that she was against the wall.

"Steve," she whispered, arching her back. He kissed her hard on the collarbone in response, and she felt him move his hips just the slightest bit so that he was lined up properly to slide inside her. He pulled back a little bit to see if she was ok, and when she nodded, he slowly and carefully sank into her. Emma closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the tile behind her. Inch by inch, he was filling her, and she couldn't get enough of him—she never could.

Steve pushed in until he was all the way inside her. Emma watched his face—he was always careful of the sounds he made during sex, and the same was true of his face. She knew he was always trying to be gentle, never wanting to be too rough or hard with her, and his face showed that he was trying his hardest to keep himself at bay. He felt so good against her and inside her that she didn't want to wait, so she tilted her hips, watching his eyes close slightly and his mouth open with pleasure.

"Ah," he sighed. Then he pulled back and pushed back into her, a little harder than he usually did.

"We've got to be quick," Emma quietly reminded him. Opening his eyes, Steve seemed to come back into himself, and he nodded to show that he understood. After that, he didn't waste a single second. He grabbed her thigh and began to move. The water from the shower made their skin slick, but it felt so good that Emma didn't mind when she felt herself slip just a little bit. Besides, she knew Steve wouldn't let her fall—she trusted him, and each time he came through.

He was moving within her quickly and effortlessly. They were both racing towards an end that wasn't that far off, and they were both trying to achieve it without leaving the other one unsatisfied. Steve's mouth moved from her lips to the side of her neck, and he kissed her in that one spot he knew she loved more than anything, the spot he knew would get the biggest reaction out of her. Sure enough, pleasure made Emma's spine tingle, and she tightened her arms around Steve's neck. His hips were rocking into her hard, over and over, and with each thrust, he pushed harder and deeper.

She felt her body tightening, the pleasure building up quicker and quicker between her legs. She let her head fall back against the cool tiles—the sensation of the cold behind her back and the hot water running over her with Steve's hot skin against her was indescribably good, and she had to remind herself to keep quiet as her sighs began to grow heavier and louder. Steve pushed her thigh open even more, and when he thrust into her again, the change in angle was perfect. Emma wrapped her legs tightly around his waist and rocked her hips in time with his. His mouth was beside her ear, and she could hear his labored breathing. He kept thrusting, and she kept feeling that warm, electric feeling climb higher and higher inside her.

And then it happened. She hit her orgasm, and her entire body tensed, feeling the waves of warmth and pleasure ripple through every muscle, starting inwards and going outwards. She couldn't feel the hot water, nor could she feel the cold of the tiles. All she could feel was this sensation she didn't want to end. She felt a loud cry start to bubble up in her throat, but she clamped her mouth shut to keep it inside her. Steve kept moving within her body, and she held him close to her, her hands wrapped around his head, and when he came, his own body tensing and shuddering beneath her touch, she didn't let him go.

They stayed still for a few moments, simply breathing and trying to find their voices. Emma couldn't remember the last time she'd ever exercised such self-control; she'd never quite denied herself the freedom to vocalize her pleasure during sex, and she'd found it to be much more difficult than she'd anticipated. The feeling began to return to her body, and she looked straight in Steve's eyes. His usual clear blue eyes were glassy from his orgasm, his pupils large and uninhibited.

"We need to hurry," he said quietly so his voice didn't bounce around in the bathroom. Tiredly, Emma nodded, and she let him gently pull out of her and lower her legs down from around his waist so that she was standing again. They quietly finished the rest of their shower, moving at super speed so they didn't take up any more time.

It wasn't before long that they were both done and out of the shower. Emma sat on the bed, fully dressed, and she waited for Steve to come out. It was unusual for her to be done getting ready before he was—she usually spent much more time on make up and trying to get clothes picked out, but she only put on a light amount of make up, and she only had one set of clothes, thereby cutting down tremendously on her preparation time.

Steve walked out of the bathroom dressed in a dark grey t-shirt and khaki pants, and he crossed towards the bed, kneeling in front of her and resting his head in her lap. The gesture was so sweet that Emma felt her throat tighten up. She lifted her hand and threaded her fingers through his soft, thick blond hair. He put one hand lightly on either side of her thighs, and he lifted his head to look up at her. His eyes were serious and soft all at the same time, but he didn't smile.

"Marry me," he said softly. Emma paused, blinking and wondering if she'd heard correctly.

"Steve?" she asked, confused. His face didn't change, his eyes only growing more sincere.

"I mean it," he calmly insisted. "Marry me."

"Oh, my God," Emma breathed. Shock filled her completely, and she felt numb, but she felt herself nodding. "Yes. I will. I'll marry you."

Steve's face widened into the most beautiful smile she'd ever seen from him, and he brought himself up to her eye level and kissed her, one hand holding the nape of her neck as he kissed her. When he drew back a few inches to look at her, he was still smiling. "I love you, Emma Lane Carroll."

"I love you, too, Steven Grant Rogers." Emma started laughing, and she covered her mouth with her hands. "Oh, my God. We're—we're engaged. We're actually engaged."

"I've actually been wanting to ask you for a while, but I was waiting for the right moment. I was going to do it a bit more romantically than this but…" Steve's voice trailed off, and he glanced down at her hands. "…when I had no idea if you were ok or not…I didn't want to wait any longer. I really didn't plan to ask you like this."

"Star-spangled man with a plan," Emma said, still laughing. "I couldn't care less about how you asked me—oh, my God. We're going to get married. I can't—I can't believe it."

"I can't believe you said yes," Steve replied, lifting his eyebrows.

"Did you really think I'd say no? Past, present, and future, babe. Emphasis on the future part," Emma said, unable to stop grinning. Suddenly, a knock at the door caught their attention, and Steve quickly moved so that he was sitting next to her without giving away suspicion. "Come in!"

The door opened, and Grace popped her head in, her amber eyes bright and alert. "Sam just whipped up a fresh batch of bacon, if you're interested. Nat and I kind of devoured the last one." She paused and narrowed her eyes at the two of them. "So is the engagement on the DL? Because if it is, just let me know, and I won't breathe a word."

Neither Steve nor Emma looked terribly surprised that Grace already knew. They were so used to the agent and her super senses that it was just one more event happening in their lives. Steve glanced over at Emma. "We keeping it hush hush?"

"Uh, at least from the public, I guess. I hadn't really thought about it," Emma replied thoughtfully. "I don't know."

"Yeah, for now let's keep it under wraps," Steve said.

"Nat and Sam will want to know," Grace pointed out, still beaming brightly at them. She sighed. "I love love. I'm so happy right now I could explode."

"The irony doesn't escape me," Emma spoke up, remembering how Grace had Extremis in her system and how if it weren't for Grace's Serum, the Extremis would have most likely caused her to overheat and blow up by now.

"Nor me," Grace cheerfully replied.

"We can tell Natasha and Sam. Is that ok?" Steve looked at Emma for confirmation, and she gave him a thumbs up. Eagerly, she stood up from her spot on the bed and started walking towards the door, glancing over her shoulder.

"Come on. There's breakfast out here," she said. "I can smell the bacon, and it smells absolutely amazing."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming," Steve said. "I'll be out in a sec."

Emma nodded, her eyes quickly glancing back to Grace, and then she left the room to go out into the kitchen with Natasha and Sam. As soon as Emma was gone, Grace excitedly grinned at Steve.

"You little shit! You didn't tell me you were going to ask her to marry you _now_!" she whisper-shouted. "I thought you were going to do it after we get HYDRA taken care of."

"No better time than the present," Steve said, thinking back to when Sam had said those very same words to him only several days ago. Grace folded her arms over her chest, and she shook her head in disbelief.

"I can't believe you. I'm so excited. You seriously have no idea." She took a hand and smoothed it over the back of her perfect French braid. "I'm really so happy for you guys. Even if you didn't tell me you were going to propose to her."

"Well, you heard it," Steve pointed out with an uncharacteristic smirk. "No one else got to hear it but Emma and you since your hearing can pick up anything in like a mile radius or something wild like that."

"Yeah, at least I have that for consolation," Grace admitted in a joking voice. She nodded her head out to the door. "Come on. People will get suspicious about what we're having a meeting over if we don't head out there soon. Aren't you starving, anyway? You burn up food so fast."

"Starving is an understatement," Steve said, and he started following Grace out the bedroom towards the kitchen. As soon as he entered the kitchen, he caught sight of Emma, and he instantly felt himself relax. It was funny how he reacted to her, and most of the time he didn't even realize it until he'd been without her for a while. Technically, he'd only been apart from her for almost 48 hours, and at the end of the day, that wasn't a very long time at all—hell, Steve had been on missions that had been longer than 48 hours, and he'd been able to function just fine without her, but this time had been different. He'd been constantly worried that something had happened to her, that SHIELD had caught up with her. He didn't even want to think about what SHIELD might have done to her had they found her. What Pierce might have done to her to get to him.

"Em and I are getting married," he announced, unwilling to hold back the information any longer. Natasha's usual guarded expression dropped into an expression of pure shock, and Sam's eyebrows shot up into his forehead.

"Shit, Rogers. Congratulations, guys," Natasha said in surprise. Her green eyes glinted as she smirked at Steve. "Much more eloquent ways to announce it, but congratulations."

"That's what I'm talking about!" Sam exclaimed, and he held his hand up to Emma in a high five. Unable to stop smiling, Emma high fived him, and he went and crossed towards Steve, offering up his own high five. "It's about time you took my advice, man. Love doesn't wait. Damn, this is the best news I've heard all day."

"Considering the fact that everything's shot to shit, this is most definitely the best news I've heard all day," Grace confirmed with a wry nod. Despite Emma's elation, she was suddenly brought back to Earth. They were on the run from SHIELD, and she still didn't know what exactly had happened. All she knew was that SHIELD had bombed Camp Lehigh, thinking that Steve, Natasha, and Grace were there, but they hadn't been.

"Wait, what's happening, by the way?" she asked. She saw the three Avengers exchange looks with each other, suddenly sobering up. She looked over at Sam to see if he knew anything, but he looked back at her with a blank expression that told her he was just as in the dark as he was. "What all have I missed?"

"This is going to take a while," Natasha said. She sighed with a mournful expression on her face and leaned back in her chair, looking up at Steve as he crossed towards Emma. "And to think. We were just so happy with all that good news."

"There's…a lot going on," Steve said. He leaned against the counter beside Emma as Sam started moving around the kitchen to get pancakes going. "And it's not good. You're not going to like it."

"_No one_ likes it," Grace muttered under her breath.

"I have a feeling shit's about to go down," Sam added. Steve looked over at him and nodded. Sighing, he watched Natasha and Grace get up to go into the living room, and he gestured with his head towards Emma to follow them. He glanced back at Sam, but before he asked his question, Sam nodded. "Yeah, I can still hear you in here."

Steve nodded back in response, and he walked out into the living room. Natasha and Grace were taking up the couch, and the only places that were left were some large, plush chairs, so Steve took one, and Emma took the other. Emma could tell by the look on his face that things were much worse than they'd originally thought, but she couldn't possibly think of any way that things could be worse. They were already shitty before, and to think that they could be worse was almost unbelievable. Steve looked over at Grace and Natasha, and he took a breath.

"So you remember how back during World War II, I fought Johann Schmidt? Red Skull?" he asked.

"Yeah," Emma replied, frowning. Of course she knew, but she didn't know how this had to do with anything.

"And he was in control of HYDRA. Well, his right hand man, Dr. Arnim Zola, was also a supporter of HYDRA. Turns out, he started working for SHIELD right after the war, and he helped HYDRA grow inside SHIELD. SHIELD's been compromised," Steve dully explained. Emma's grey-green eyes widened, and she leaned forward in her chair, her damp hair falling over her shoulder.

"What?" she asked. "How—how's that even possible?"

"HYDRA basically rewrote history in order to get people to do what they wanted," Grace added, her voice mirroring Steve's. "So…I don't know how they did it, but they managed to." She paused, and then she snapped her fingers. "Oh, and to make things even more fun, HYDRA uploaded Zola's brain onto a shit ton of computers so that when his body died, he'd still be alive."

"That's what the explosion at Camp Lehigh destroyed," Natasha spoke up. "So Zola's wiped out officially."

"But HYDRA isn't," Emma said slowly.

"Y'all weren't kidding when you said this was shitty," Sam announced from the kitchen. "This is _worse _than shitty."

"Fucking understatement," Grace grumbled. "Anyway, Steve and the doctor got to have a lovely reunion before Doc was blasted to bits."

"There's an algorithm on the hard drive Fury gave Steve, but Zola wouldn't tell us what it would do," Natasha said, sighing as she put her head into her hand. "No matter what it is, though, it's bad."

"So SHIELD agents were working with HYDRA, and they knew about it and didn't stop it?" Sam asked. Steve felt his stomach drop as he thought about the next thing he needed to tell Emma. He didn't want to—God, he didn't want to tell her because he knew she would be devastated, but he couldn't keep it from her.

"There were SHIELD agents who _supported_ HYDRA," Grace corrected, careful not to give anything away to Steve on what she was thinking, and he knew that she was thinking about the same thing he was.

"Em…" Steve brought his hand up to his mouth and rubbed his lower lip with his thumb. Then he leaned forward and looked at her, his blue eyes just as sincere and serious as they'd been when he'd asked her to marry him just moments ago, though this time Emma could see a little bit of dread and regret in them. "I found out something you're not going to like. Something Zola told me."

"What?" Emma asked.

"Your parents," Steve slowly replied. Emma froze. Suddenly, she knew. She knew exactly what he was about to tell her, and she couldn't move. Her breath stopped in her throat, and she was absolutely frozen. Steve was looking at her so regretfully and so…so nervously that she knew.

"What, Steve?" she asked, her voice coming out in a whisper.

"They were working for HYDRA," Steve said. And Emma's world broke. She wished that she could have just collapsed into tears and gotten her meltdown over with, but she found that she still couldn't move. She was breathing, and she was blinking, but she wasn't moving. Her entire body felt stiff, and she forced her head to move.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "They couldn't have been."

"That's what Zola told me," Steve reminded her. "I don't know if he was telling the truth or not, but he told me your parents were followers of HYDRA."

"How can—how can that be—be true?" Emma asked. "They were good people. My parents were good people. They couldn't—I don't—"

She stopped talking, and she pressed the back of her hand against her mouth to physically keep herself from speaking. If she took her hand away, she was half-afraid she'd throw up, and she didn't want to do that. She forced her lungs to take air in, inhaling deeply, and she shook her head again.

"Emma. I don't know any more than you do," Steve said gently. He scooted to the edge of his chair and reached out towards her, placing a hand on her back and rubbing it gently. "But you've got to consider that that might be true."

"It'd make sense," Grace softly added, again careful not to upset Emma any more than she already was. "SHIELD tracked you all throughout college. They'd want to know what you were up to if your parents were HYDRA. Hell, even if your parents had just been SHIELD, they would've been keeping up with what you were doing."

"How would Zola know? How would he—he know if my parents were HYDRA?" Emma asked, forcing herself to remain calm, even though her hands had started shaking for what felt like the hundred-millionth time. She put them between her knees so no one else could see.

"He knew who _you_ were," Steve replied. "He has all the SHIELD files, all the HYDRA files. Or at least he _did_. Until SHIELD sent out the order to blow us all up."

"Who would know if they were HYDRA? Who would be able to confirm or deny it?" Emma asked, her determination suddenly settling in to prove that her parents weren't who Zola had said they were. She didn't know if the scientist had been lying, but she wished to God that he had been. Her parents. Her parents had been HYDRA, and the thought sent chills all the way down her spine in the worst way possible.

"I don't know," Steve said. "Probably whoever's in charge of HYDRA now, and we're still trying to figure that out."

"Oh, my God." Emma put a hand over her face, and she tilted her head down as she kept mentally telling herself to breathe. She could barely even think right now—it seemed like years ago since Steve had asked her to marry him, years ago since they'd had sex in Sam's guest room bathroom.

"Emma? Emma, you with me?" Steve brushed some hair back from her ear, and she nodded.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm ok. I'm just…oh, God. HYDRA. This is…" Her voice trailed off as she tried to think of something to say. This information was even worse than when Steve had told her several months back that they'd been involved with SHIELD and had been killed on Jackson Marsden's orders—this news was _way _worse than that, and yet she felt that she was reacting somewhat better to this than she had the other. She didn't know what to say; how could she possibly describe what she was feeling in that moment? She couldn't.

"I know it's a lot to take in, but right now we need to focus on terminating HYDRA," Natasha spoke up. Steve shot the Russian an irritated look.

"I know," he said tersely. "We have a lot of questions that we need answers to."

"The pancakes are done," Sam said suddenly. Confused silence broke out amongst the three Avengers and Emma as they remembered that he'd been making pancakes. "Want any?"

"Yeah," Grace replied.

"Me, too," Natasha said. Steve nodded in agreement and looked over at Emma. She was too busy staring off into the distance with a horribly confused, thoughtful look on her face, and he shook his head. He hated answering for her when she was perfectly capable of answering for herself, but Emma wasn't a big pancake person to start out with, and she definitely looked like she couldn't handle any pancakes right now.

"So the question is, who would SHIELD call to launch a domestic missile strike?" Natasha asked.

"Pierce." Steve lifted his head in grim realization.

"Who happens to be sitting on top of the most secure building in the world," Natasha said, getting up and crossing closer to Steve and Emma. Emma paused, and then she frowned.

"Pierce?" she asked. "Alexander Pierce?"

"Yes. You know him?" Natasha asked. Emma looked over at Steve with wide eyes, and he frowned at her, not understanding what she was saying. She leaned forward, pushing herself to the edge of her seat.

"Steve," she said evenly. "Remember when I was with my aunt and uncle? I found that note on SHIELD paper?"

"Yeah," Steve said slowly. "What about it?"

Emma inhaled, and then she swallowed. "It was to my dad. From Pierce."


	9. Surrender

**Shoutouts to Lilybear3121, lovefairytail007, Layla347, Guest, thecruelworldwelivein, Lunar678, Jo, bellapaige88, RL, KD Skywalker, and MsRose91 for reviewing!**

**Yay, I'm so glad y'all liked the engagement! We're getting back on track to the movie now, and Emma is back involved with the action. Please don't hate me for the ending! You'll know what I mean when we get there. The plot keeps thickening, y'all.**

**I'm sorry it took me a while to update, but I'm trying to keep my three stories balanced out, and I try to do a minimum of 6,000 words for each story, even though I've been falling a little short of that recently.**

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**Enjoy! =)**

* * *

Chapter 9

Emma watched realization pass over Steve's face as he absorbed what she'd just said. He ran a hand over his face.

"Dammit," he said. "You're right."

"Wait, what?" Natasha asked in a confused voice. "What note?"

"Right before my accident, I went home to figure out more about my parents, and I was going through their things and found a note that Pierce had sent to my dad back when my parents were still alive. Shit. I didn't think they were connected, but…" Emma's voice trailed off. She leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees, resting her head in her hands. "Shit."

"Emma, that doesn't mean anything. We still have questions and basically no answers," Steve said gently but firmly. He was trying to comfort her, but he knew that she knew there was little chance of anything but what Zola had told them. He had a feeling that Zola had been right about Emma's parents, and from the way Emma was reacting, he could tell that she was putting it all together, too. She looked up at him from her hands, and he saw that she was finally understanding and accepting what she'd just been arguing.

"Yeah, we might not have very many answers, but I have all I need to know to figure out what was going on with my parents," she said in a monotone. She sat back up and leaned back in her seat. Steve wanted to reach out to her, to see if she were ok, but she looked too closed off and upset for him to do anything. Besides, the others were watching him, and they had to figure out what was going on with HYDRA. His instinct was to go to her, but his head told him to stay present with the others.

"Well, Pierce isn't working alone," Grace spoke up, getting them back on track as soon as she saw that Emma didn't appear to be joining in on any of the conversation any time soon. "Zola's algorithm was on the _L'Marion Star_."

"So was Jasper Sitwell," Natasha said, her face hardening. Steve paused, and then he took a deep breath.

"So the real question is how do the four most wanted people in Washington kidnap a SHIELD officer in broad daylight?" he asked. Natasha frowned, and she tilted her head to the side.

"Four?" she asked.

"You, me, Grace, and Emma," Steve answered, looking at her as though he were surprised she couldn't count. Natasha shook her head firmly.

"No. Emma's not a part of this," she said. "She's not an agent."

"Neither am I, technically," Steve spoke up. Natasha gave him a bored look.

"You know what I mean," she said.

"She means I'm not an Avenger," Emma spoke up. Steve looked over at her, and she gazed calmly back at him. "I don't know how to protect myself the way you guys do."

"Exactly." Natasha gave Emma a grateful look. Emma wasn't sure whether or not Natasha was insulting her, so she kept her face calm, and she looked back at Steve.

"No, she's coming with," Steve insisted. "I'm not letting her out of my sight again."

"Steve, she _can't _come. It's too dangerous," Natasha argued. Emma looked back and forth between the two, and she sighed.

"Or you could just ask me what I want to do," she said irritably. "I'm not a child. I'm an adult who can make my own decisions. I managed to escape SHIELD and get here all in one piece."

"It's too dangerous for all of us," Natasha argued. "Steve will be trying to protect you and cover you, rightfully so, and you'll be trying to keep up with the rest of us."

"No, I'll be there to cover your asses if someone shoots you," Emma snapped impatiently. It was rare for her to lose her patience with people—she was a nurse because she was good at being calm with everyone; she was good at smiling and making everyone feel peaceful. However, she could not find it in herself to stay calm for much longer with Natasha Romanoff and Steve making decisions for her right in front of her.

"She _is _a nurse," Grace said diplomatically. Natasha shot Grace an annoyed look, but Grace's face remained unchanged.

"Emma, do you _want _to come?" Steve asked. "It's going to be a lot."

"Sounds like fun," Emma said in a blasé tone. She watched a look of dread come over his face and then pass as quickly as it'd come. She knew he'd been hoping she would tell him she wanted to stay somewhere hidden, but she wouldn't be that person. She wasn't going to let him make decisions for her, and she would be damned if she just sat to the side and did nothing if she could at least be of some help to them.

Steve looked back at Grace and Natasha. "So. Like I was saying. How are the four most wanted people in Washington going to kidnap Sitwell?"

"The answer is…you don't." Sam suddenly appeared out of nowhere with a manila folder in his hand, and he dropped it on the table in front of Steve.

"What's this?" Steve asked, confused.

"Call it a resume," Sam answered with the tiniest hint of a smirk on his lips as he watched Steve stand up to open it. Emma watched Natasha and Grace lean over the folder, opening it and picking up pieces of paper and photos inside.

"Is this Baghmala?" Grace asked in surprise. "Khaleed Khandeel mission." She glanced up at the soldier with her amber eyes. "That was you."

"You didn't say he was a pararescue," Natasha said in an accusatory tone as she peered over Grace's shoulder.

Steve took a photo out of Grace's hand, and he glanced up at Sam. "Is this Riley?"

"Yeah." Sam nodded with a look on his face that made Emma wonder about how he'd wound up here in this position today. She was able to put enough information together to figure out that Riley must have been someone close to Sam that he'd lost sometime recently. Suddenly, she knew why Steve had felt as though he could trust Sam, and she looked over at the blond Super Soldier, watching his face change with understanding.

"I heard they couldn't bring in the choppers because the RPGs," Grace said thoughtfully. She looked over at Sam again. "What'd you use? A stealthshoot?"

"No. These." Sam stepped forward and pulled up another picture to hand to Steve. Emma watched Steve's eyes widen, and suddenly, she was tired of sitting down, so she stood up and walked over to Steve, peering over his arm. As soon as she saw the picture, she could only imagine that her face looked the exact same as his.

"I thought you said you were a pilot," Steve said, his voice betraying that he was more than a little impressed.

"I never said pilot," Sam answered with a small, knowing grin on his face. Steve paused, and then he looked back down at the picture in his hand. He shook his head, frowning.

"I can't ask you to do this, Sam," he said, and he looked back up. "You got out for a good reason."

"Dude, Captain America needs my help. There's no better reason to get back in." Sam's face was pure determination. He glanced over at Emma. "Besides, looks like you getting married now. Gotta make sure the two of you are safe and sound for that wedding you're inviting me to."

Despite himself, Steve smiled, and he glanced over at Emma. Sobering up, he lifted the picture in his hand and looked back at Sam. "Where can we get our hands on one of these things?"

"The last one is at Fort Meade. Behind three guarded gates and a 12 inch steel wall," Sam said seriously. Emma blinked. This was definitely going to be a lot more interesting and illegal than she ever would have expected. She watched Steve, Grace, and Natasha all exchange looks with each other before Steve casually looked back at Sam.

"Shouldn't be a problem," he concluded. "Let's get going."

Natasha looked as though she were about to protest Emma's coming, but she didn't say anything. Instead, she just walked into the bedroom where her clothes from earlier were hanging in the bathroom. Grace picked up the file that Steve had dropped on the table.

"Tony is going to be so pissed," she half-sang under her breath. "He totally wanted in on the design for these wings back when they were doing them. He's still only a little bitter."

"Why didn't they let him?" Emma asked. Grace smiled.

"It's Tony. The government tries to keep his hands out of everything as much as possible," she said. Without pausing, she went straight into the next question. "So where are you and Steve planning on honeymooning?"

"Haven't discussed it yet," Steve deadpanned in a bored tone as he walked behind Emma to get the rest of his things, too. He put a hand on her shoulder when he passed. "If she keeps bugging you about it, just don't answer."

"You're not funny, Steve," Grace said as Steve smirked over his shoulder and left. She sighed and looked at Emma. "I've been telling him that Turks and Caicos is a really great place for a honeymoon, but he's been kind of fighting it."

"Turks and Caicos? I heard it was nice," Emma said.

Grace's eyes lit up. "See? That's the kind of attitude I wish he had about this whole thing."

"Steve, what do you think about Turks and Caicos?" Emma called out loud enough for Steve to hear.

"Don't encourage her!" Steve shouted back. Even though Emma wasn't sure how exactly she was feeling in that moment about everything going on around her, she could still muster it up inside herself to smile. And when she looked over at Grace, Grace was smiling at her, too.

* * *

A number of hours later, Emma was on the edge of her seat and gaping at the man who always happened to be her fiancé beside her. Steve stared straight ahead, his chest heaving as Grace easily maneuvered their way through traffic.

"Ok. So cross off highly illegal infiltration off my bucket list," Emma mumbled under her breath to Steve. "Is this what you do on a daily basis?"

"More or less," Steve replied professionally. "I just usually have SHIELD's approval to do it, so technically it's not illegal."

"Jesus," Emma sighed. "I thought you guys weren't ever coming back."

"But we did. That's the fun part," Natasha smartly quipped from the other side of Emma. "And we did it successfully, so that's even more fun."

"Yeah. Fun," Emma deadpanned. Steve softly chuckled.

"We're fine. No one'll notice. We were in and out in minutes. Went flawlessly," he said. He lowered his voice and dipped his head down the slightest bit so that he could talk more privately with Emma. "You ok?"

"Yeah, I'm perfect. You don't have to ask that every few minutes," Emma gently replied. She didn't mean her words to be rude to Steve—she was just tired of being treated as though she were going to break. Ever since she'd shown up at Sam's house, Steve had been looking at her and handling her with the utmost care. The way he stared at her sometimes made her feel like he was terrified she would shatter if he looked at her too hard.

"I know. I just—"

"I know," Emma quietly interrupted. She looked up at him with an expression that let him know she understood, but Steve looked back at her, disturbed by something he was thinking but not sharing with her. She frowned. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah. Yeah. It's just a little strange having you come along on missions," Steve said.

"Because I'm normally at home keeping the house warm," Emma replied in a tone he couldn't quite identify.

"Are you mad?" he asked, lowering his voice even more, even though he knew it was basically pointless since the car was small, and Grace with her super sonic hearing was right up front. As if Grace were reading his mind, she leaned forward and switched the radio on, turning it louder than she normally would.

"No. I'm just stressed. We just illegally took a top secret, super dangerous weapon from a military installation to go fight the government which isn't really the government because the government has secretly been taken over by a Nazi organization," she mumbled.

"Ok, that's fair," Steve said slowly. "When you put it like that…"

"It sounds crazy," Emma finished. "I know. I keep going over it and over it and over it in my head, but there's no way I can word this to make it seem…better."

"Because it can't be better." Steve's voice was gentle, but his tone was firm. "This is our life now."

"So I'm realizing," Emma said. She sighed and looked at him, surprised to see his face look almost upset by her words. Quickly, she placed a hand lightly on his thigh and smiled at him. "I'm sorry. I'm stressed. I'm just stressed."

Steve moved his hand so that he could hold hers, wrapping his fingers in between hers. "We'll be ok."

"Ok," she said back. She tightened her hand inside Steve's and sat back while they started out on their trek to Washington. Things were about to get a whole lot stickier; the thing was, she'd known that the second she'd found herself in a relationship with Steve—hell, she hadn't even entered into a relationship with Steve Rogers. She'd started dating Captain America. She'd known all of the dangers involved when she'd become official with him, but she just hadn't foreseen the fact that she would someday eventually be in the middle of those dangers with him.

* * *

Emma was not impressed with Jasper Sitwell. When Steve tossed the agent through the door that led to the rooftop, she looked over at the commotion and calmly took in the sight of her pissed off fiancé and Natasha Romanoff walk through the door behind Sitwell. Even though Grace had announced that she sensed their arrival, it was still somewhat surprising to see Steve toss a man through a door.

"Tell me about Zola's algorithm," Steve ordered, getting right down to business. Grace glanced back at Emma, and then she stood up to go join the interrogation. Basically, Emma was there because they couldn't let her go off by herself, and Grace had stayed to babysit. Emma hated feeling as though she needed a babysitter; Steve had passionately denied the fact that Grace was there to watch her and make sure she didn't do anything to accidentally alert SHIELD to where they were, but she'd known that that was what her friend was there to do.

"Never heard of it," Sitwell replied, nervously putting his glasses back on from where they'd been knocked off by the force of Steve's throw.

"What were you doing on the _L'Marion Star_?" Steve asked as he moved to the next question.

"I was throwing up. I get seasick," Sitwell retorted. Emma watched Steve back Sitwell up to the edge of the building. Her stomach twisted with nervousness—she'd never been under any illusions about Steve when he was Captain America. When he was in superhero mode, she knew he'd do whatever it took to get the right thing done, and she was seeing that firsthand. Yet, there was something about watching the man who could be so tender with her threaten a man by nearly throwing him off a building made her see Steve in a new way. For a second, it looked as though Sitwell were going to fall off, but Steve grabbed the lapel of Sitwell's jacket and pulled him back up.

"Is this little display meant to insinuate that you're going to throw me off the roof?" Sitwell paused and looked over at Emma. "Especially in front of your girlfriend? 'Cause that's really not your style, Rogers."

Steve stared hard at the agent. "You're right." He stepped back and looked over towards Grace. "It's hers."

Without wasting a beat, Grace stepped forward and planted a kick square to Sitwell's chest, effectively pushing Sitwell back over the edge of the roof. Emma flinched; she'd been prepared for this moment, but she still flinched. Screaming, Sitwell plummeted to the ground beneath him.

Steve calmly waited for Sam to follow through on his part of the plan, and he looked out over the tops of the other buildings to kill time.

"What about Aruba? Aruba would be a fun honeymoon destination," Natasha suggested suddenly.

"Aruba?" Steve asked. "Isn't that where that one girl was kidnapped and killed?"

"Natalee Holloway," Grace confirmed with a nod. "Wait, you know about Natalee Holloway?"

"I have a laptop," Steve said, looking mildly offended. "I might be a bit behind on the times, but I do my research."

"Huh," Grace said, impressed. "Well, yeah, that's where Natalee Holloway went missing. Lot of girls go there to have fun over the summer, if you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I'm not ready for that," Steve said. "If I'm going to go on a honeymoon, it'd have to be somewhere a little calmer."

"Emma, what do you think about Aruba?" Grace shouted over her shoulder, but before Emma could reply, true to the plan, Sam appeared from below, wings outstretched with Sitwell screaming and kicking in his hands. Emma watched with huge, impressed eyes as Sam's mechanical wings spread out gracefully, soaring high over everyone as he pulled Sitwell up and dropped him to the concrete rooftop. Sam landed on the rooftop and folded his wings up, turning around to look back at the action behind him. Grace, Natasha, and Steve sauntered confidently over to Sitwell as Sitwell began to flail and back away from them.

"Zola's algorithm is a program!" Sitwell shouted. His breaths come out in gasps. "For choosing Insight's targets."

"What targets?" Steve demanded.

"You," Sitwell gasped out. "TV anchor in Cairo, the Undersecretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa City, Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who's a threat to HYDRA. Now…or in the future."

"The future," Steve repeated in a confused tone. "How could it know?"

Sitwell looked up at Steve in disbelief, and he let out a low laugh. "How could it _not_?" He drew himself up to his feet. "The 21st century is a digital book. Zola taught HYDRA how to read it." He looked back and forth at everyone's confused faces. "Your bank records. Medical history, voting patterns, emails, phone calls, your damn SAT scores. Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past to predict their future."

"What then?" Steve asked. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer, but he knew he needed to. Sitwell suddenly seemed to realize everything he'd just said, and panic crossed over his face.

"Oh, my God, Pierce is going to kill me," he said out loud to himself.

"What then?" Steve impatiently demanded as he stepped forward to bring Sitwell back to the present. Sam grabbed Sitwell's jacket from behind and shook him hard.

"Then the Insight helicarriers scratch people off the list," Sitwell quietly explained. "A few million at a time."

"Oh, my God." Emma brought her hands up to her mouth in horror. She'd been good at keeping quiet so far, but the information that Sitwell had just repeated to them all left her with a sick feeling in her stomach. For whatever reason, her day seemed to be getting worse and worse, and yet, it was strangely the best day of her life, considering the fact that Steve had asked her to marry him earlier.

"Yeah, that's right. You're on there, too," Sitwell said bitterly. Emma ran a hand through her blonde hair and tried to quell the panic that was once again rising up inside her. SHIELD had targeted her to kill her; well, technically, _HYDRA _had, but it still felt like SHIELD was the one pulling the trigger.

"We need to go," Steve snapped. "We're all on this damn thing, and we're going to stop it."

"You can't stop HYDRA," Sitwell argued, his tone conveying that the notion of all of them stopping HYDRA were ridiculous. Steve kept his face hard, and he looked over at Emma.

"Come on. We're rolling out," he called to her. Quickly, Emma stood up from her seat, and she crossed towards the other superheroes as they began to move towards the door. Grace stayed on Sitwell—her instincts and senses were sharp enough to catch him and incapacitate him before he even moved half a millimeter, so she was the best person to keep closest to him.

"Where are we going?" Emma asked, following everyone down the stairs with Steve beside her.

"HQ," Steve replied. "Sitwell can stop this."

"Like hell I will!" Sitwell shouted back to him.

"Shut up," Steve snapped. He looked down at Emma, his face unreadable. "Things are about to get a whole lot more complicated."

"It's always darkest before the dawn," Emma said with a shrug. His face folded into a small frown, but he didn't say anything. Instead, he quickly smoothed a hand down over the small of her back. The gesture was fast and absentminded, but it was one that was meant to reassure Emma, and she took it as such. They were about to jump from the frying pan and into the fire, and Emma was all too aware of it.

"You're always so optimistic," he murmured quietly to her.

"It's either laugh or cry, and I've done enough crying for this whole team the past few days," Emma replied. Steve shot her a worried look, but he didn't say anything.

"I'll make this up to you," he said. "I promise."

"You kind of already did with the whole proposal thing. Just…stay alive, so we can actually get married. Ok?" Emma asked. She'd originally intended her statement to be joking, but it came out far more serious. She waited for Steve to call her out on it, but he didn't. He nodded.

"Ok. Only if you can do the same for me," he said.

"Ok. Got it," she said.

"Then it's a deal."

Steve never backed out on his deals. As they kept walking down the stairs and to the car that would take them to HQ, Emma looked up at Steve. No, he never backed out of his deals. Ever. And she would hold him to this one if it was the last damn thing she did.

* * *

"HYDRA doesn't like leaks." Sitwell glanced worriedly around the small car that he was cramped inside. Emma had no other choice but to look back at Sitwell since she was perched awkwardly on Steve's lap up front. Natasha, Grace, and Sitwell took up the backseat, and Sam was driving, so that left Steve in the passenger's seat, and Emma had automatically received the lap vote. So from her position, her head was uncomfortably tilted to the side, and she was facing the backseat. Automatically, her view as of Sitwell.

"Why don't you try sticking a cork in it?" Sam smartly suggested.

"Insight's launching in 16 hours. We're cutting it a little bit close here," Natasha spoke up.

"I know. We'll use him to bypass the DNA scans and access the helicarriers directly," Steve replied.

"What?" Sitwell snapped in disbelief. "Are you—"

"Unknown attacker on our left! Get out!" Grace suddenly shouted, and she began moving to the opposite side of the car that she was sitting on. "Now!"

Before anyone could move, the window on the driver's side in the back exploded, and Sitwell was gone with a scream. Emma didn't get a chance to see because Steve wasted no time in grabbing her and positioning himself between her and the action. Immediately, Emma's body was tense, and she could feel her heart rate starting to pick up in an increasingly, uncomfortably familiar way.

"Steve!" she cried out. Suddenly, the sound of bullets being fired caught her ears, and she flinched with each shot. She couldn't see—Steve was blocking everything from her vision, but she could hear everything, and it didn't sound good. She could hear Grace shouting something about jumping out, and she swore Natasha's voice was right above her ear, shouting back something about getting to safety.

Without any warning, the car lurched to a stop, and Emma's body went flying forward before she was caught up in the solid circumference of Steve's arms. Her head shot forward, and as she tried to figure out how to get her mouth to move again, she wondered how bad the whiplash she'd just gotten was.

"Steve?" she said again, but this time her voice came out like a question.

"Emma, stay down," Steve ordered. Emma tried to keep her head down, but she also wanted to look, so she stayed low against his chest, but she turned her head. What she saw next, she never could have prepared herself for. There in the middle of the street was a man with long brown hair that went to his shoulders, a mask over his face, and a metal arm.

"Oh, my God," she breathed. The man stood in the dead center of the highway without moving, without looking concerned or worried that he would get hit by a car. He simply stood there, staring down the car that they were in. Emma couldn't see his eyes, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. Somewhere up behind Steve's head, a gun appeared, and Emma turned her head to see Natasha lifting it up to shoot whoever was out there in the road.

But before Natasha could get a shot fired, a Humvee came up from behind and smashed into the small car. Again, Emma was jolted forward, only to be caught inside Steve's arms in a safe cradle that would keep her from being harmed. They were speeding towards the man, and she was sure that they were going to hit him, but at the last second, he flipped up and over, landing on the roof and grabbing onto the top of the car.

"Stay down!" Steve shouted to her. The front windshield crashed as the metal arm came smashing through it, ripping the steering wheel out from Sam's hands. From out of nowhere, Natasha had a gun, and she began shooting at the man as he jumped onto the Humvee behind them.

"Grace, what do we do?!" Natasha cried.

"Jump!" Grace snapped. The Humvee hit the car from behind, and they were jostled up against the concrete guardrail.

"Hang on!" Steve shouted. The car began to flip, and he wrapped his arm protectively around Emma's waist. Emma noticed Natasha and Sam grab on to the car door, but she didn't see Grace, and suddenly, they were falling and taking the car door with them. Panic filled her; her first instinct was to scream and flail, but she turned her face into Steve's chest, closing her eyes tight as she fell to what she hoped was the ground.

They hit painfully hard, and they skidded across the pavement. The sound was loud and abrasive and hurt Emma's ears. She wanted to lift her hands to cover the sound from entering her brain, but she couldn't; she could only hold onto Steve to keep from falling. Finally, they began to slow to a stop. Sam was no longer on the car door with them, and when Emma frantically looked around, she saw him standing at a short distance behind them, perfectly safe.

"Come on, Emma. Get up," Steve ordered. Emma didn't look where he was looking, but she could see the command and the focus in his eyes, and she'd seen enough Captain America documentaries to know that he only got that look whenever something very dangerous was right around the corner. Scrambling, she got to her feet, but before she was fully upright, Steve grabbed her and pulled her behind his shield.

For what felt like the millionth time, Emma was knocked off her feet, and she was soaring through the air. Steve was around her, keeping her inside a safe shell of protection. She couldn't see where they were going or what they were doing; all she knew was that she was falling, and she didn't know where the hell they were going to land. For a brief moment, it crossed her mind that this was it. This was how she was going to die. She'd always imagined herself living out a full life. Someday, she'd have kids and then grandkids, and if she were lucky, she'd die in her sleep when she was older than she ever would have thought she'd be, and that would be that.

But no. In that moment, as she was in free fall in the air, she knew she was going to die then.

A loud crash and the harsh, violent jolt of an impact shattered that illusion she'd built up for herself, and she looked up, struggling to regain control over her senses as she realized that she and Steve had crashed through the window of a bus and knocked it over. Steve was lying painfully on his side. He was conscious, but he looked incredibly dazed and winded.

"Steve? Steve, something's going on out there. There are gunshots. Baby, look at me," Emma said quickly, her words spilling out of her mouth quicker than she could process. Steve looked up at her, his blue eyes starting to register everything around them.

"Get out of here," he said. "Emma, you need to go."

His voice came out in painful gasps. Emma swallowed hard, and she shook her head. "No."

"You need to go. Go to the apartment. Stay there. I'll come get you," he said.

"But—SHIELD—aren't they monitoring it?" she asked.

"They'll be looking for me right now. Not you. Go!" he shouted. Emma stared at him with huge eyes. She wanted to tell him no, but the sounds of the gunshots and the screams of the people outside and around her told her to go.

"Ok," she said. "Ok."

"I'll meet up with you! Get out of here!" he shouted, and before she changed her mind to stay, she began to stumble out the sideways bus and towards daylight. She was more dazed than she thought she'd been. Now that she was on her feet, she found that she was having trouble staying on her feet. Her head was still spinning, and she could barely catch her breath, but she was running on adrenaline now, and she knew she needed to get the hell out of there.

And that was when she saw the wounded woman behind an overturned car near the sidewalk. The woman looked as though she'd been injured in the bus when it'd tipped, and she looked confused and lost. Emma saw blood running down the woman's leg, and she knew she couldn't leave. This was what she'd been trained for—to help people. If she left now, she would be turning her back on everything she believed in.

_I'm so sorry, Steve_, she thought to herself, and she ran towards the woman.

"Hi, my name's Emma Carroll. I'm a registered nurse. What's your name?" she shouted over the sound of the bullets.

"A—Andrea," the woman gasped out. "I was on that bus, and then—"

"Captain America came crashing through the window," Emma said, finishing with what she hoped was a good-natured smile. She knelt down to the ground by the woman and began looking at her leg. "What happened?"

"It got stuck underneath the—the seat when the bus tipped," Andrea replied. Gunshots were still being fired, and Emma could barely hear over them, but she nodded and set about to figuring out if the woman's leg was broken.

"What's your pain level?" she asked. "On a scale of 1 to 10. Ten being the worst."

"Um, an eight, I think. I think," Andrea said. Emma could feel her shaking beneath her hands. As Emma neared the wound, Andrea jumped hard, and tears began to pour down her face. "Oh, God, that hurts!"

"I know. I know it does. I'm sorry. I think your leg is broken, Andrea. I'm going to try to find something to splint your leg with, and we'll try to get you somewhere safer, ok?" Emma asked. Andrea nodded. Emma wasn't entirely sure that Andrea fully understood what Emma was saying in all the chaos and the confusion, but she seemed to be relatively safe behind the overturned car. At least safe enough for Emma to try to find anything that could serve as a splint.

Taking off in the opposite direction, Emma began to run. She needed to find something and fast. The quicker she got Andrea taken care of, the quicker she would be able to get out of there and back to the apartment. Gunshots came from all around. In the back of her head, she kept repeating words of safety to Steve over and over.

_Be safe, Steve. Be safe. Be ok for me, Steve. Please just be ok_, she thought silently.

"Emma Carroll."

Suddenly, two heavily armed men with intense SHIELD armor stepped out in front of her. She froze. SHIELD had caught up with her. She took a step back and started to turn, but she knew that when she turned over her shoulder, she'd be surrounded. Sure enough, when she looked back, she saw more men lining up behind her, their guns all aiming at her.

"Surrender now," one of the armed men said. Even though she knew it was in vain, Emma looked around for Steve. She was so used to him coming in to save her, but she had no idea where he was. She'd told him she was going back to the apartment, and he'd trusted her enough to let her go. Despite the fact that she was being held at gunpoint by five different men with weapons that could kill her in less than half a second, she found herself noticing the irony that the one time Steve had let her go out on her own, she'd been captured.

"He's not coming," another armed man said, as if he were reading Emma's mind and knew exactly what she was thinking. Emma swallowed and took a shaky breath. There was nothing for her to do, no other choice. She wasn't Grace Marks—she couldn't effortlessly disarm these men and take them down with barely a scratch. Hell, she wasn't even Natasha. She was just a nurse.

So she did the only thing she could do. She held up her hands, and she surrendered.


	10. Cornered

**Shoutouts to Layla347, fluttershypegasus1, Lilybear3121, lovefairytail007, Jo, thecruelworldwelivein, MsRose91, and bellapaige88 for reviewing!**

**This chapter is more action-y for lack of a better word, and one of my favorite young men comes back. And by one of my favorite young men, I definitely mean Bucky Barnes aka the Winter Soldier! We also get to see what Emma's going through at SHIELD, plus some more moments with Agent 13, Sharon Carter.**

**If you want extra emotions, listen to "Over My Head (Cable Car)" - The Fray. I know it's a bit overplayed sometimes, but it so fits what's going on.**

**As always, your reviews make my day. You guys make me so happy when you give me any kind of feedback.**

**Enjoy! =)**

* * *

Chapter 10

Steve wasn't thinking about Emma. He was thinking about how the hell to get out from underneath all of these goddamn bullets. They were pounding into him from what felt like every which way, and he had no choice other than to stay beneath his shield. He'd been able to use his shield to redirect the bullets to hit other shooters, but so far, it seemed that his two choices were to keep staying behind his shield until someone's bullet hit home or to advance forward. So he started to run forward, pushing his shoulder into the shield against the force of the bullets that threatened to push him back, and he flipped up and over the shooter, landing behind him and effectively disarming him.

Behind him, he could hear the sounds of guns and more firing. He looked up and saw Sam half-leaning over the edge of the bridge that he and Emma had been blasted off of only moments ago. Sam caught his eyes. "Go! I've got this!"

And Steve trusted Sam, so he turned, and he started to run somewhere else where he might be of use. He needed to figure out who that man on the bridge was and why he wanted to kill all of them. Well, all of them except Sam. Steve, Natasha, Grace, and Emma were all wanted by SHIELD, and since SHIELD seemed intent on killing them, it would make sense that they would send this strange man after them. In the back of his head, he heard Natasha talking about the Winter Soldier. The Winter Soldier. As if his day couldn't get any worse.

The sound of an explosion nearby caught his attention. If he could make a guess as to where he should start, that would probably be the best bet. Without waiting another second, he started running as fast as he could. He started rounding the corner, and that was when he saw the Winter Soldier, standing over a terrified-looking Natasha Romanoff. The Winter Soldier paused, and he turned towards Steve, lifting his metal arm up and over.

Effortlessly, Steve lifted his shield up over his head and deflected the blow, letting out a grunt of effort as he struggled to keep the shield in position underneath the unnatural strength of the Winter Soldier's arm. The Winter Soldier kicked Steve backwards, and he went falling to the ground. The Super Soldier kept his shield up as the Winter Soldier fired another shot.

Well, he did love a challenge, Steve thought to himself. He just had no idea how much more difficult things were about to become. If he had, he might have stopped right there. He might have lowered his shield and ended it right then and there. But he wouldn't know just how serious, how personal this fight was until it was too late.

* * *

Emma didn't consider herself to be a crier, but over the past few days, she'd kind of turned into one. So when she didn't cry at being captured by SHIELD, she somewhat surprised herself. On one hand, she felt so numb that she could barely find it in her to cry, but on the other hand, she didn't want to give SHIELD the satisfaction of knowing how deeply they were upsetting her. She knew that they wanted her to feel trapped, to feel helpless and separated from Steve, and for her to cry would be a sign of victory for them, and she didn't want to give it to them.

The men in bulletproof armor had swiftly and silently escorted her to an armored vehicle, and that was where she was sitting now. There weren't any windows for her to look outside, so she was all by herself. Suddenly, the back doors opened, and in climbed a familiar face. Emma's lips parted in surprise, and she stared with wide eyes at her neighbor Kate, a woman she now knew to be Agent 13, Sharon.

"Emma," Sharon quietly greeted as she closed the door behind her. The truck suddenly lurched, and Emma found herself jostled around in her seat. The men had handcuffed her earlier, and she was still in handcuffs, the metal of them biting into her skin. "I'm so sorry this is happening to you."

"Are you a part of this?" Emma asked. She'd wanted her question to come out calm and even, but as the words left her mouth, the tone became heartbroken and disappointed, and Emma hated how emotional she sounded. Sharon pressed her lips together, and she looked away.

"I'm not part of any manhunt after Steve Rogers," she said carefully.

"But you're part of _this_," Emma specified. She looked down at herself. "Capturing _me_."

"I was originally stationed in your apartment until I received the call that you, Steve, and the others had been spotted," Sharon vaguely answered. Nausea filled Emma's stomach; she'd been on her way to her apartment. If she'd made her way back to the apartment, she would have ended up in this same situation, she realized.

"Oh, my God." Emma closed her eyes, and she leaned her head back against the headrest of her seat. "This can't be happening."

"Please believe me when I say I'm sorry that this has to happen," Sharon said, her tone almost pleading. Emma opened her eyes, and she turned her head to glare forcefully at the blonde agent.

"No, you're not," she snapped. "If you were, you wouldn't be doing this, and here you are."

Sharon didn't look terribly bothered by Emma's words, but she stared at Emma for a few seconds longer than Emma felt comfortable being stared at, and then she looked away. "I _am _sorry."

Emma swallowed hard and pressed her lips together to keep her emotions down. More than anything in the world, she wanted to scream and shout at Sharon, to tell her how she really felt about all of this, but as she usually did, she swallowed her anger down and sat still. It wouldn't do anyone any good to freak out, so she resigned herself to sitting calmly and trying to let her anger simmer down.

"What are you going to do to me?" she asked.

"Alexander Pierce wants to see you," Sharon replied, her gaze and voice steady. "He has some questions for you."

"Questions? Is that all?" Emma frowned. Sharon didn't bat an eyelash.

"I don't know," she said. "All I know is that he has a few questions regarding the death of Director Fury."

"I don't know anything to do about Director Fury's death," Emma protested passionately.

"That's what he wants to find out." Sharon sat back in her spot and kept her cool eyes on Emma. "He knows that you were there in the apartment, and he wants to hear what happened from your point of view."

"I wasn't there for most of it," Emma said. "I was back in the bedroom napping before Steve came home for dinner, and by the time the shots rang out, you saw what happened next."

"Well, he wants to hear it from you," Sharon said diplomatically. A lump swelled up in Emma's throat, but she forced herself to swallow it down again. No matter how frustrated she got, she was determined not to cry. One thing Steve said about her was that she was stubborn as hell when she really made up her mind on something, and crying was one thing she was determined not to do right now.

"I don't believe you," she said slowly. Sharon frowned at her, confused.

"What?" she asked.

"I don't believe that's all he wants with me, and I think you know it, too," Emma said, her voice still slow and controlled. "If all he wanted to do was question me, he wouldn't have sent a whole team of SHIELD agents after me when I was at the hotel waiting for Steve. He wouldn't have captured me on the street the way he did. He wants me as leverage against Steve, and he's not afraid to use me as such."

"He just wants to talk to you," Sharon repeated.

Emma snorted and rolled her eyes in a very uncharacteristic manner. "You sound like a broken record."

Sharon didn't say anything in response, and Emma looked away from the agent, silently letting Sharon know that she was done talking. Little did she know that Sharon was and wasn't surprised all at the same time to see this side of Emma Carroll, America's Sweetheart and girlfriend of Captain America. Emma very rarely let her bad side come out because she tried to always do the right thing; that was one of the reasons that she and Steve got along so well. They just wanted to do what was right by everyone. So for Sharon to see Emma roll her eyes and snap at her, she wondered what the hell the right thing was. Emma seemed to know. So did Steve. If only she could, too.

* * *

Steve was a confident enough fighter that he felt he could get along without his shield and get out of an intense fight alive, but damn, he certainly did feel a hell of a lot better when he had it back. After he ripped his shield out of the side of the van where it'd previously been embedded by the Winter Soldier, he got a stroke of luck and managed to knock the Winter Soldier down to the ground. As he anticipated the Winter Soldier's next move, his muscles tensed and ready, he noticed that he'd knocked the man's mask off.

He waited in anticipation. His heart pounded in his ears, but he was too focused to hear it. He was winded but not by much. Everything seemed to slow down but speed up all at the same time as the strange man across from him pulled himself back up to his feet, his long brown hair down around his face. The man was upright, and then he turned around to face Steve.

Steve stopped breathing. He was looking at a dead man. Immediately, he fell out of his defensive position and stood still, tall and completely vulnerable as he stared in shock. He swore he wasn't breathing—he could barely think. In stunned disbelief, he squinted his eyes slightly. "Bucky?"

"Who the hell is Bucky?" the man asked, but it was in Bucky's voice. Steve felt his stomach drop. That was Bucky's voice. There was no doubt about it that the Winter Soldier was James Buchanan Barnes, the last person he ever would have thought to even be alive. Steve started to move towards Bucky, but out of nowhere, Sam came soaring through the sky and knocked him to the ground before either Bucky or Steve could make a move towards each other, whether that move was offensive or defensive.

Bucky stood, and he stared back at Steve. They were at an impasse. Then Natasha took the initiative and fired an explosive into the car beside Bucky, and he ran before Steve could pursue. By the time the smoke cleared enough for Steve to get any kind of glimpse as to where Bucky was, the Winter Soldier was gone. Steve couldn't breathe. He couldn't fucking breathe, and yet he was. He stared at the spot that his best friend had just been, and he struggled to process what he'd just seen.

Bucky had just tried to kill him. Bucky hadn't recognized him. Bucky had a metal arm. Bucky was the Winter Soldier. Steve was so busy lost in his own thoughts that by the time he registered the fact that alarms and sirens were coming from every direction, it was too late to run or fight. Armored SHIELD cars with lights flashing and sirens blaring came, and he was surrounded. As he turned to look around, he saw Sam, Natasha, and Grace beside him. He paused as he looked at Grace; he didn't remember seeing her during the fight at any time, and yet she was there and looking pissed as hell.

"Drop the shield, Captain!" A voice shouted. Steve turned to look, and he saw Rumlow. In the back of his mind, he could practically hear Grace complaining about the agent, and now he didn't blame her for disliking him. "Get on your knees! Get on your knees!"

Numbly, Steve dropped the shield, and he slowly put his hands up over his hand.

"Get down! Get down on your knees!" Rumlow kicked the backs of Steve's knees, and Steve fell forward. He didn't even try to fight Rumlow or anyone else. He just let them shout at him as he tried to process everything that was happening. There were so many agents, so many guns. He'd led his team right into the middle of this—Jesus, Sam had just gotten out of a shithole just like this, and he'd led him right back into it.

"Don't move."

Steve could feel the barrel of a gun being brought up against his head, and suddenly, everything seemed to fall into perspective for him. This was how he was going to die. Here. In the middle of Washington D.C. with news helicopters flying above him surrounded by HYDRA agents wearing SHIELD uniforms. And then it hit him that Emma hadn't crossed his mind at all since she'd ducked out of the bus and scrambled off towards their apartment, falling and staggering as she'd made her path away from him.

Oh, God, Emma. He was going to die on live television, and she would be able to see the footage.

"Put the gun down," Rumlow ordered to the gunman who had his gun pressed to Steve's head. "Not here. _Not here_."

The implication of Rumlow's words made Steve feel sick, but he kept his face calm and resigned. Everything was happening too quickly and all at once. Emma was again out of his reach, and Bucky was the Winter Soldier. Bucky was alive.

As Rumlow shoved Steve's hands into handcuffs, he looked up and saw more agents cuffing Natasha and Sam. Even Grace was allowing them to handcuff her, her amber eyes back from being black and lethal. She made eye contact with him for only a second, and then she looked away. There weren't any more words for them to say right now, at least not that Steve could think of. For him, there were none.

Rumlow pulled him up to his feet and started leading him towards one of the many armored vehicles. "Your girlfriend's already been taken into custody, Cap."

Suddenly, Steve snapped out of it. His head whipped to the side to look at Rumlow, shock and horror filling his light blue eyes. "What?"

"You heard me," Rumlow gruffly replied. "We caught her just moments ago. She's on her way to HQ. Pierce has some questions he wants to ask her."

"Leave her out of this," Steve snapped. As if he hadn't heard the Super Soldier, Rumlow leaned his head in closer to Steve's so that no one else but Steve could hear him.

"She sure is pretty," he said quietly. Steve's first instinct was to turn and beat the shit out of Rumlow, to make the man regret ever saying anything about Emma. But he didn't. His jaw tightened, and he fought the nausea that was starting to feel more and more familiar as the day passed on.

* * *

Sharon led Emma through the back way of SHIELD. Emma wasn't sure if she should feel safer or more endangered by the fact that she was being taken in so secretly, but she tried not to dwell on it. All she tried to think about was keeping her story straight. Pierce would try to get her to break and tell him the truth, but she had to stay strong. Silently, she told herself to be more like Grace, whose blank expressions were part of the reason she'd been able to get through so many hard times so far.

Emma followed Sharon through the halls, though she didn't really have much of a choice. She was still handcuffed, and Sharon had a firm but gentle grasp on her arm to pull her along if she tried to give any trouble. It came to Emma's attention that there were very few agents in the halls, and she wondered why that was. She'd never been in this part of HQ, but there was never a section of the building that wasn't bustling.

"Where are we going?" she asked, feeling like she was in some badly written movie where the protagonist asked too many stereotypical and obvious questions.

"Interrogation room," Sharon briskly answered. "Pierce will be meeting you there."

Emma tried not to show the horror on her face, and she made no acknowledgment of Sharon's answer. Instead, she quietly walked down the hall until Sharon stopped and scanned into one of the rooms without giving Emma much of a warning that they were about to stop. The door opened, and Emma walked through to find just a table and two chairs inside. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting; one half of her had been expecting to see a bunch of torture devices, as ashamed as she was to admit it, but all that there was in the room was just a simple chair and two tables.

"He should be in shortly," Sharon said. She held a hand out to one of the chairs. "You can sit if you like."

Emma thought of a thousand things she could tell Sharon to do, but she kept her mouth shut, and she crossed slowly towards one of the chairs. It still hadn't quite sunk in that this was her life, that this was actually happening to her. She had always joked to Steve that her life was like an action movie because she was dating a superhero, but now it really hit her just how ridiculously true it was.

As she sat down, she looked back at Sharon. "Can I have a glass of water?"

"Of course. I'll be back." Sharon paused. "The room's monitored."

"Ok," Emma replied, though she really didn't feel ok at all. She sat back in the chair and watched Sharon walk out and leave. Swallowing, she looked around her. She'd never been in any kind of legal trouble before, so to be handcuffed and taken in to an interrogation room was overwhelming in and of itself. Even if she hadn't had the kind of crazy 48 hours that she'd had, she would have felt overwhelmed as it was, so to pile this on top of everything else made her feel just a little bit short of going crazy.

Sharon walked back in the room. "Pierce is on his way down."

"Great," Emma deadpanned. Sharon looked at her but didn't say anything. Quietly, she crossed towards Emma and gestured for her to move forward. Emma did as Sharon commanded, only to be surprised that Sharon was taking the handcuffs off her.

"There isn't really an easy way to escape," Sharon said by way of explanation. Emma paused, and she thought about saying something else, but she didn't. She looked at the glass of water sitting in front of her.

"Thank you," she said. "For the water."

Sharon gave a short nod but didn't say anything else. A few silent minutes passed, and Emma tried to pull herself together. She was in the middle of pretending she was somewhere else when the door opened, and in walked Alexander Pierce. Emma had seen pictures and videos of Pierce, but she'd never seen him in person. He strode in commanding and casual all at the same time, and he smiled softly at her.

"Hello, Miss Carroll," he said. He looked over at Sharon and nodded. The agent took her cue and swiftly exited the room, shutting the door behind her and leaving Emma and Pierce alone together. Emma started to sweat, and she told herself to keep her breathing even and steady. "I've wanted to meet you for some time."

"And the best way to do that is obviously to send out a bunch of SHIELD agents after me?" Emma smartly asked. Pierce at least had the decency to look mildly ashamed of it.

"I know. That wasn't the best way to go about it," he said. "Well, SHIELD's big on protocol. After Director Fury's assassination, we've been a bit on edge."

"I could tell. All the guns," Emma said bluntly.

"Captain Rogers has never mentioned that you're funny," Pierce answered with a gentle smile. "I'm sure he knows your sense of humor better than anyone."

"Thank you," Emma answered. Her grey-green eyes stared hard at the man as he crossed to the table and sat down across from her, all the while he was intently staring at her.

"What happened the night Director Fury died?" he asked.

"How did you know my parents?" Emma countered. Pierce didn't look surprised at all; if anything, he looked somewhat pleased that she'd thought to ask him the question.

"Are you bargaining with me?" he asked.

"I'm only asking," Emma answered without actually answering the question. Pierce studied her, and then he sighed.

"They were agents here with SHIELD," he said. "They were wonderful people, Emma. You would have been proud of them."

"Because they were HYDRA? Is that why?" Emma demanded. Pierce's gaze remained calm.

"Tell me what happened in your apartment," he said.

"Nothing," Emma snapped impatiently. "I got back to the apartment, and I didn't know what time Steve was going to be home, so I lay down to take a nap, and I woke up to the sound of gunshots. I ran out and saw Director Fury on the floor, and then Sharon burst in through the door. That's it."

"I don't believe that for a second," Pierce said in a mild tone. "I believe you saw the entire thing."

"Well, that belief isn't true at all," Emma replied, her tone mirroring his. "I didn't see anything. I was sleeping."

"Do you nap often, Emma?" Pierce asked, and he squinted his eyes slightly at her. Emma felt a chill run down her spine, and she pressed her lips together.

"Yes," she slowly answered. "I'm a nurse at a SHIELD hospital. My boyfriend is Captain America. I have tiring, stressful days."

"It's evident that you love Captain Rogers very much. You would have to in order to stay with him for so long. He leaves a lot and doesn't tell you where he goes or what he does. That worries you." Pierce's words were a statement, not a question, but Emma nodded her head in answer.

"Yes," she said. "It would worry any other military wife, which is basically the same exact role I play."

"It's also evident that Captain Rogers loves _you_. He went through great lengths to keep you protected and away from us these past few days." Pierce rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward closer towards her. "I know he does the right thing. Always. If he thought for one second that the right thing would be to have you come answer my questions, he would have encouraged you to do that. But he didn't. He had you run away. Why else would he do that?"

Emma paused. She hadn't really anticipated this question. "I don't know. I'm not Steve. I can't answer for him."

"But you trust him to make the right decisions for you?" Pierce questioned. Annoyance flashed over Emma's face, and she sighed harshly, pursing her lips.

"I make my own decisions," she said shortly. "That's it."

"So make the right decision today, Emma. Help me here. Help me figure out what happened to Nick Fury and what Captain Rogers's role in all of this is. If he were innocent, he wouldn't be running," Pierce said in a tone that conveyed he clearly thought he was on to some kind of good point.

"He's innocent. He's the most innocent person out of all of us," Emma said meaningfully.

"Your captain has killed more people than I can count." Pierce's words made Emma blink in surprise. "Is he really so innocent? Think about _that_."

And even though she didn't want to, she did.

* * *

"Bucky's the Winter Soldier," Steve said dully in the back of the armored vehicle he was riding in. Sam frowned at him, Grace stared unblinkingly, and Natasha gritted her teeth in pain.

"Isn't he supposed to be dead?" she asked.

"It was him," Steve quietly insisted, his gaze down on the floor. "He looked right at me. Like he didn't even know me."

"How's that even possible? It was like, 70 years ago," Sam asked, still somewhat skeptical.

"Zola," Steve answered. "Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43. Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall. He must have found him and…"

"None of it's your fault, Steve," Natasha weakly interrupted. It was obvious that she was feeling the effects of blood loss; her eyes were glassy, and she looked as though she were having trouble concentrating. Grace's amber eyes flicked over to the Russian, studying her.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky," Steve said quietly. "And when I woke up, when I had nothing, I had Emma."

"At least she's safe," Sam said by way of comfort. Steve's blue eyes shot up, and he shook his head.

"They captured her," he said tightly. "Rumlow told me when he was cuffing me."

"They've got Emma?" Natasha asked, her voice wavering. Grimly, Steve nodded, and he looked back down at his hands.

"We need to get a doctor here," Grace said suddenly, and she turned to look at one of the armed guards riding in the back with them. "We don't put pressure on that wound, she's gonna bleed out here in the—"

Grace was cut off by one of the guards lifting up a taser and switching it on. Instantly, her irises went black, and she started to move into a defensive position when the guard turned the taser on the guard next to him and punched hard, effectively knocking him out. Steve watched Grace stare hard at the turncoat agent, and he prepared himself for anything to happen. Finally, the agent lifted the helmet up and off and revealed himself to be, in fact, a her.

Agent Maria Hill let out a breath of relief. "Ah! That thing was squeezing my brain." She took in a few more deep breaths of air and flicked her dark brown hair out of her face before looking at Sam and pausing. She looked back towards Steve. "Who's this guy?"

"Sam Wilson," Sam said, looking mildly nervous.

"Falcon," Grace corrected, her muscles easing and her irises lightening back up to their amber color.

"Oh. Ok," Maria said. She looked around at everyone. "So we're going to do a stealthy break out. That ok with everyone?"

"Hell yeah," Natasha breathed. "You won't hear _me _complaining."

"Where are we going?" Steve asked with a frown.

"Not to your kill spot, if that's what you're wondering," Maria said with an uncharacteristic smirk. "Come on. Romanoff's going to bleed out all over this truck if we don't leave soon."

"And we'll get caught," Sam added.

"That, too." Maria lit up the taser again. "Ladies and gentlemen, let's party."

* * *

Maria drove, and Steve took shotgun while the others stayed in the back of the van they'd commandeered to watch Natasha. The redhead was doing ok, but they were all worried that her condition would turn bad in just a matter of seconds. Steve was quiet throughout the drive.

"So your day seems like it sucks," Maria said under her breath to him.

"Understatement," Steve drily answered. "Can't seem to catch a break."

"You should be used to that by now, Captain. You haven't managed to catch a break since you were born," Maria said. Steve paused as he considered her words. Technically, she was right. He'd been born sickly and unwell, and he'd grown up being bullied for his size and his inability to do anything physical. Then, once he'd received the Serum, he'd plunged straight into the role of Captain America. After that, things hadn't really gotten that much easier.

"You're right," he agreed.

"I'm not very good at offering comforting words, but…sometimes things turn around. Most of the time they don't. But I hope that this is one of those times where they do," Maria offered.

"Thank you," Steve said. He kept his gaze steady as he looked outside the window. "Emma and I are supposed to get married."

"You proposed?" Maria asked, surprised.

"Yeah," Steve answered. "She said yes."

"Well. She gave the right answer," Maria said.

"They're not going to let her go," Steve said in a flat voice. "They're going to do whatever they can to get her to talk."

"They know that if they do anything to her, the nation will be in an uproar. Even though she's technically being called a criminal by all the news stations, there are a lot of people who don't believe it. Your girl didn't earn the name America's Sweetheart for nothing, Rogers," Maria replied.

"But that doesn't mean they can't order an accident." As soon as the words left Steve's mouth, he thought back to just several months ago when he'd gotten the worst call of his life from Emma's cousin Alex, the call saying that she was in the hospital because of a car accident. "That was SHIELD."

"What?" Maria glanced over at him with a confused face.

"Emma's car accident a few months ago. It was planned. Grace and I were in the middle of—Grace." Steve turned around to look at the dark-haired agent. Grace was already looking steadily at him, her face calm. "Emma's car accident. Ordered by SHIELD—no, ordered by _HYDRA _to cover up the truth about her parents. Once she started digging…"

Realization passed over Grace's face, and her mouth opened the slight bit. "Oh, my God."

"How would HYDRA know she was discovering things about her parents?" Sam asked with a frown on his face.

"My apartment was bugged, but I didn't even know it until Fury told me. SHIELD's been watching Emma for years. They watched her all throughout college, and they offered her a job before she'd even graduated. Who's to say that they weren't watching her before then? We don't know how long they were keeping tabs on her. Her aunt's house had to have been bugged," Steve concluded.

"Fucking hell," Grace sighed, and she ran a hair down the back of her hair. "That'd make sense."

"Wait, Emma's car accident was rigged?" Maria asked, still confused.

"Yeah. Russian weaponized vehicle," Grace shortly replied. "No driver."

"Jesus," Sam breathed.

"It makes sense, though. The pieces are finally starting to fall together." Grace pressed her lips together tightly, and she sighed. "Literally everything we know is falling to shit."

"Not everything," Natasha spoke up. "We're all here, aren't we?"

"Black Widow getting sentimental? Never thought I'd see the day," Grace quipped. Natasha rolled her eyes.

"Scorpion being a smartass? Doesn't surprise me," she returned, though she looked the slightest bit paler. Maria pulled up to a hidden location.

"Here we are, troops," she announced. "And all in one piece."

"Mostly," Grace mumbled under her breath. Steve squinted his light blue eyes at the structure in front of him. It looked like they were at an abandoned dam. He hadn't been aware of its existence, and he was sure that no one else was, either. Quickly, he hopped out of the passenger's side and went to help open up the back door of the van, helping Natasha out. Grace got out behind the Russian assassin, and she started walking behind Natasha and Sam when Steve saw Maria discreetly whisper something in Grace's ear.

Grace pulled back, her face stony, and Steve saw her mouth move to form a question: what?

Maria firmly shook her head and moved back in again, talking in a volume that only Grace would be able to hear. As Steve watched the two agents talk, he wondered just how many secrets everyone in this impromptu team was carrying.

* * *

Emma had been sitting by herself for hours now. Or at least that's what it felt like. She didn't know how long she'd been there, and truthfully, she wasn't even sure that she wanted to know. Pierce had left her after he'd brought up the fact that Steve had killed more people than she cared to think about, and she'd been left on her own since then.

Since the handcuffs were gone, she could get up and walk around, and that was how she'd chosen to spend most of her time. Sometimes she sat, but mostly she walked. She got nervous energy, and she liked to get it out by pacing, which was exactly what she was doing.

_Well, _she thought to herself, _if I get out of this alive, I'll definitely always remember the day Steve proposed to me_.

She sighed out loud, making the first sound that she'd made in probably an hour. The sound was loud, but it quickly got swallowed up by the acoustics of the room. Emma looked up at the walls, noticing how shiny they were, when suddenly, the door opened, and in walked a man that she recognized as Brock Rumlow, a member of Steve's team that she'd never met before.

"Where is he?" Rumlow demanded furiously. Emma's muscles tensed up, and she backed away from the angry agent.

"What?" she asked.

"Rogers. Where is he?" he asked.

"I—I don't know," Emma sputtered.

"You don't know?" Rumlow repeated. "Bullshit. You keep saying you don't know what happened to Fury in his last moments, but you do, and you know where Rogers is."

"I don't!" Emma insisted.

"Do you realize what's happening here? History. History is what's happening. You can either stand in the way, or you can give me answers." Rumlow crossed towards her, and Emma backed up even farther.

"I don't know!" she shouted.

"Rumlow! Back off." Sharon's voice filled the room. Rumlow stopped in his tracks, and he looked over his shoulder to see Agent 13 with her gun lifted, cocked, and aimed in his direction. "Step away from her."

"Agent—"

"We're under strict orders not to hurt Emma Carroll. Orders from Pierce. If he hears about you antagonizing her, he won't be happy. You know he won't," Sharon said in a quiet voice.

"Do you buy this bullshit she's feeding us?" Rumlow asked angrily, gesturing back towards Emma. "She's hiding what went on with Fury right before he died, and she's keeping where Rogers is hiding from us."

"I don't care. We're under orders." Sharon gave Rumlow a steely gaze, and he finally lowered his arm and straightened up. He stared at Sharon for a few seconds, and then he brushed past her as he exited the room. But at the last second, at the very last possible second, he paused, and he looked back at Emma, his eyes skimming over her up and down, and then he was gone.

Emma bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself together and to keep herself from throwing up right there in the middle of the interrogation room. Tears pooled behind her eyelids, and she was again feeling the urge to cry. She could feel Sharon looking at her, but she didn't look back; she turned away from the agent and covered her mouth with her hand to keep everything inside.

"I'm sorry," Sharon offered up again.

"I don't care," Emma sighed. She closed her eyes to keep the tears from running down her face.

"We _are _under orders not to hurt you—"

"I don't care!" Emma exclaimed, turning around to face Sharon.

"—for now," Sharon quietly finished. Emma froze. Her entire body locked up as she realized the implication of Sharon's words. "Right after you were captured in D.C., SHIELD got hold of Rogers, Romanoff, Marks, and another man they later identified as Sam Wilson. Somewhere in the transportation process, all of them escaped."

"Steve escaped?" Emma asked, her eyes growing large. Sharon nodded.

"Yes." Her voice was still quiet. Silence passed between the two of them, and then Sharon spoke again. "Why does SHIELD want the two of you so badly?"

"I don't know. You tell me. You're the one who was staked out in our apartment in hopes of capturing me," Emma retorted in a tired voice. "If I knew why SHIELD wanted us, I would like to think I would have done something about it by now. You keep saying SHIELD wants to question me, but they seem to think I know more than I really do. Why is that so important, anyway?"

"Director Fury's death isn't something to take lightly," Sharon replied seriously.

"I'm not saying it is," Emma gently answered. "But why is everyone so convinced that something happened? So convinced that I was literally hunted down in the street and handcuffed and brought in here."

"I don't know," Sharon finally admitted. "I have questions, too. About all of this."

"So ask them," Emma said firmly. She folded her arms over her chest and stared defiantly at the blonde agent who she thought had been another nurse living across the hall. "Orders are orders. I get that. I'm a nurse. But there are times when someone else's call is sketchy, and you call them out on it."

"I know," Sharon replied. Emma lifted her eyebrows and squinted her sea-colored eyes slightly at the woman in front of her.

"Do you?"

* * *

"GSW. She's lost at least half a pint," Maria called out down the dark hallway as someone Steve didn't recognize ran towards them. He looked over at Natasha and saw that she didn't look any worse than before, but she certainly didn't look any better. When he looked over at Grace, he saw her face tight and emotionless, and he felt that he knew her well enough to know that something was wrong.

"Maybe two," he added. He waited for Grace to jump in with the exact number since that was what she would usually do, but she didn't say anything.

"Let me take her!" the agent running towards them shouted.

"She'll want to see him first," Maria replied. Steve turned his gaze back to Grace, a confused frown on his face—these days he always felt as though he were confused—and the look in his friend's eyes told him that she was pissed.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," she snapped under her breath. Maria shot her a warning look, but she didn't say anything else as they walked down the hall. Natasha tried to catch Grace's eye, but the amber-eyed agent refused to look over at her. Steve had no idea what the hell was going on, and he was starting to grow tired of all the secrecy when the agent leading them pulled aside a plastic curtain at the end of the hall.

Other than Bucky, the person in the bed was the last person Steve would have thought he would see alive. There in the bed, alive and well, though looking a little rough, was Nick Fury.


	11. Truth

**Shoutouts to fluttershypegasus1, Layla347, lovefairytail007, MsRose91, bellapaige88, Jo, thecruelworldwelivein, bellarose95, Nashira Kozoroh, and Guest for reviewing!**

**Before we jump on into business, I had a question if I'm going to write a Bucky/OC story. Yes, just to reconfirm, when I finish this story, my next mission is to write a Bucky/OC. I already have the first chapter mapped out in my head, so I'm excited to actually get writing it =) So yes, I will be writing a Bucky/OC.**

**Special shoutout to bellarose95 for listening to my song recommendation for last chapter. If I can think of a song that fits the chapter, I'll include it because I think music is an awesome emotional influence, and it can sometimes help shape the mood for the chapter. I always love knowing if you guys like the songs I pick for the chapter whenever I have them, so yay! For this chapter, if y'all want extra emotions, feel free to listen to "Iscariot" - Walk the Moon, one of my all-time favorite bands =)**

**As always, keep leaving your thoughts and opinions! They're so helpful for me as a writer, and they keep me motivated to keep writing! Thank y'all so much.**

**Enjoy =)**

* * *

Chapter 11

Steve had never been a fan of ghosts, but he realized that he didn't much like dead people who weren't really dead, either. As he stared in disbelief at Nick Fury, he wondered just how many secrets these people around him had. What did Natasha know that she wasn't sharing? What did Maria know? Hell, what did _Grace _know? He knew that Agent Phil Coulson was alive; she'd told him that, even though she wasn't supposed to. For all that he knew, Maria and Natasha could still be in the dark about it, and that made him realize that he was in the dark about a lot more than he'd initially thought.

"It's about damn time," Fury said in a voice that could only be described as something akin to a purr.

"I'm not leaving," Natasha said instantly. "Not until I get answers."

"Take care of her here," Maria murmured to the doctor nearby.

"What the hell's going on?" Steve asked, a question that he seemed to be asking a lot these days. He looked back and forth between everyone; it didn't escape his notice how Grace had gone completely stony, looking exactly the way she had when Fury had been pronounced dead. The doctor began working on Natasha's shoulder, setting her down in a chair close to the formerly dead director of SHIELD.

"I'm alive," Fury said.

"I can see that," Steve drily replied. Fury's eye drifted over to Sam.

"Who the hell's this?" he asked.

"Sam Wilson. Falcon," Sam spoke up with a respectful nod. Fury glanced back at Steve as if he were mentally asking the Avenger if Sam were trustworthy, and when Steve didn't make any move to signal that Sam was an enemy, Fury seemed to relax into his bed a little bit more.

"What happened to you? You were dead," Steve said.

"Not quite," Fury replied tiredly. "Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, one hell of a headache."

"Don't forget your collapsed lung," the doctor working on Natasha said, pausing in his dressing to interject.

"Oh, let's not forget that," Fury deadpanned. "Otherwise, I'm good."

"They cut you open. Your heart stopped," Natasha protested, showing no signs of pain as the doctor finished taking care of her. Steve took a quick peek over at Grace and saw her expression remained unchanged; all she could do was stare at Fury with absolutely no emotion on her face in the slightest.

"Detradetoxin B," Fury calmly replied. "Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it."

"Why all the secrecy?" Steve asked with a small frown. "Why not just tell us?"

"Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful," Maria replied.

"Can't kill you if you're already dead," Fury added. "Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust."

"I told Grace outside since I knew she'd sense him as soon as we entered the building," Maria said, her tone mildly apologetic as she looked over at Grace. The amber-eyed agent had her arms folded stiffly over her chest, and she gazed robotically at Fury.

"This is ridiculous," Grace muttered suddenly.

"Excuse me?" Fury asked, his eye gazing hard at her.

"We all thought you were dead," Grace snapped.

"I just said I wasn't sure who to trust, Marks." Fury's volume increased with irritation as his tone became more irritated, too. Grace snorted, and she smirked in a way that looked more Tony Stark than Grace Marks.

"You know us, Nick," she said. "Surely that's got to mean something to do. We all backed you up during the Battle of New York. When the Security Council was flipping a shit, we all backed you. Steve did, Nat did, I did…_all _of us."

"And how many times has Alexander Pierce had my back?" Fury countered. "It's not as simple as you'd like it to be, Marks. _You _know people can trust you, but no one else knows that. For fuck's sake, the first rule at the Academy is to not trust anyone."

"Well, I didn't go to the fucking Academy," Grace snapped. "Remember? I was brought in, and SHIELD was going to run tests on me, but you stopped them? Remember that?"

"Of course I do." Fury stared levelly at her. Grace stared back, and then she turned on her heel and left. Now that Grace was gone, Fury let out a sigh, and he closed his eye, leaning his head back into the pillow. "Number one rule in life: never piss off Scorpion."

Natasha smiled weakly from her corner, but Steve could see that she was just as bothered by Fury's admission that he felt as though he couldn't trust her as Grace had been. Truth be told, Steve didn't feel all that bad on a personal level. On a professional level, however, he was pissed that Fury hadn't said a word to him. But what was done was done, and he tried to let it go. He thought of Emma, how she was able to let go of things much easier than he was. Whenever she got mad, she held onto it for a little while and then dropped it.

God, Emma. Thinking about her again made his stomach knot up. She was in the hands of HYDRA, and it was all because of him. Again, guilt passed over him. Because of him, everything bad had happened to her. Technically, he felt as though he were to blame for her parents' death. Had he fully eliminated HYDRA the way he should have back during the war, her parents might not have been HYDRA, and she might have grown up with the mom and dad that had been taken from her when she was 11.

"Emma was taken by SHIELD. HYDRA. Whoever," Natasha said. Fury didn't hide his expression of shock, and he looked over at Steve.

"They got Emma?" he asked quietly. Steve nodded.

"Yeah. As soon as we got into D.C.," he said.

"Shame," Fury answered, his voice still quiet.

"We might have been able to avoid that had we known about all of this," Steve said. His tone wasn't bitter, nor was it angry; it was just matter of fact. Pulling a Grace Marks, he turned over his shoulder, and he walked out of the room.

* * *

When Alexander Pierce came back into the interrogation room, Emma barely even looked up.

"You want answers, fine. I'll give them to you. But I need answers from you, too," Pierce said. He crossed to the other chair across from her and sat down, not wasting any time. "You don't want to be here any more than I want to keep you here, Emma."

"So you'll tell me about my parents if I tell you what happened the night Director Fury died," Emma stated, studying the man in front of her with her sea-colored eyes. Pierce nodded in confirmation.

"Correct," he said. "But this is a deal, Emma. That means no backing out of your agreement."

"Ok." Emma stared calmly at Pierce. "Tell me about my parents."

"They were SHIELD agents. Good ones. Your father and I had actually known each other back in the day, and when I came to him with the idea of HYDRA, he jumped on board. Your mother did, too. In secret, they transported HYDRA weaponry in their planes to secret HYDRA locations. After a while, they started feeling nervous about what they were doing, so I started having someone monitor them. I think they knew it because they tried to smuggle you out on one of their weapons-runs, but I was one step ahead of them. Hired Jackson Marsden as my hit man, and he followed through. Your parents died. You didn't." Pierce folded his arms over his chest. "There are your answers."

"You ordered a hit on my parents because they were trying to get me to safety," Emma slowly repeated. Pierce paused, and then he tilted his head to the side as he considered Emma's words.

"No. I put a hit on your parents because they were unreliable towards the end. They'd always been amazing for HYDRA. Some of my top people. But then…some people can't ever get rid of the SHIELD ideals," he said.

"I'm going to be sick," Emma said quietly.

"You wanted answers, Miss Carroll. I gave them to you." Pierce stared levelly at her, unblinking. "When Fury figured out that Marsden had been bombing some of SHIELD's men, he sent Captain Rogers out to take care of him. Remember that mission? Well, it was cut short because Marsden killed himself. Just between you and me, Marsden didn't kill himself. I just took him into a…call it a witness protection program."

"You are evil," Emma said, her voice shaking. "Do you realize how messed up all of this is? Does it not cross your mind that this is _wrong_?"

Pierce sighed. "Those who don't understand HYDRA would see it that way. The problem with you and Captain Rogers is that you see things as black and white. Good and bad. You don't pay attention to all the grey shades because you don't believe the grey shades are there. That's why HYDRA seems so wrong to you. But if you—"

"Oh, don't give me that 50 shades of grey bullshit speech," Emma suddenly and impatiently snapped. "This is just wrong. Everything. This isn't the way to be free. HYDRA's destroying freedom more than it's helping."

Nonplussed, Pierce leaned his elbows on the table. "What happened the night Nick Fury died?"

Emma pressed her lips tightly together, and she slowly inhaled and then exhaled as she balanced herself out. Inside, she was still reeling from what she'd discovered about her parents, about everything Pierce had just told her about Thomas and Leah Carroll. But on the outside, she had to look composed. She took in a breath and slowly started to speak. "The night Nick Fury died, I came back from running errands. Steve wasn't home yet, and I wasn't sure what time he'd get back, so I went to take a nap in the bedroom. The next time I woke up, it was to gunshots. I ran out to the sound and saw Steve pulling Director Fury to safety, and I started treating him. That was when Agent 13 took over."

Pierce's face twisted into an ugly expression of frustration. "You promised me answers."

"And I gave you answers," Emma said, her voice still even and slow. "I told you. I saw nothing. I was asleep."

"Emma, I really don't want to have to do things the hard way with you. I like you. Everyone likes you. America _loves _you. Please cooperate with me," Pierce said in a tone that could be considered pleading.

"I am!" Emma insisted, her own face adopting a look of frustration. "I've told you time and time again that I saw nothing, and I'll stand by that no matter what you do to me."

Suddenly, a female agent opened the door and peeked her head in, her eyes landing on Pierce. "Sir. Your next appointment is in 10 minutes."

Pierce looked back at Emma regretfully, and then he sighed and stood up. "Alright. I'll be out in a second." He watched the agent exit the room, and then he turned back towards Emma. "It's not what I'm going to do to you to get the truth from you. Believe me, I don't want to hurt you. It's what I'm going to do to Steve in front of you."

Emma felt her stomach jolt forward, but she kept her mouth closed as her eyes widened, horrified. Pierce's eyes scanned across her face; satisfied with the result of her horror, he smiled, and then he turned over his shoulder and walked out of the room, leaving Emma to grieve the loss of control in her own life.

* * *

"Are you ok?"

Steve pulled his gaze from the doorway looking outside, and he looked over his shoulder to see Natasha standing behind him, her green eyes curious and cautious all at the same time as she looked at him. Now that her shoulder had been taken care of, she looked much more stable and resilient, the way she always did.

"Yeah," Steve replied. "Are you?"

"Yeah." Natasha quietly crossed towards him. "Grace is upset."

"I know. She didn't want to talk to me when I found her earlier," Steve said.

"She didn't want to talk to me, either." Natasha stood beside Steve and looked out the doorway with him. "This is hard for her."

"I can imagine. It's been hard for all of us. Especially her," Steve replied. Natasha turned and looked curiously at him.

"Don't downplay your pain," she said. "You have a habit of doing that."

"Do I?" Steve asked wryly. Face unchanging, Natasha nodded.

"You do. You put your pain below everyone else's," she said. "We're all having a hard time. Grace. Me. Even you. Don't downplay your pain, Steve."

"You can never really measure pain," Steve murmured, more to himself than Natasha as he repeated words Emma had said to him before.

"Wise words," Natasha remarked.

"Emma's words."

"She's a wise girl."

"That's why I fell in love with her." Steve looked down at the floor. "Remember how I said it's hard to find someone who has shared life experience?"

Natasha nodded solemnly. "Yeah."

"I know it sounds crazy…but Em does have shared life experience. I mean, she didn't get frozen for 70 years or get a Super Soldier Serum, but…I don't know. She does," he said. He didn't know what he was saying, but the words were coming, and he couldn't quite stop them.

"I understand," Natasha said quietly. "She's been through just enough to understand you."

"Yeah," Steve replied. "Exactly."

"That's how it is with Barton." Natasha didn't look at Steve when his head snapped to the side to look at her in surprise. She rarely spoke about the archer after the Battle of New York, and it was a shock to hear her speak about him. "We haven't gone through the same exact things but…just enough."

"How is he?" Steve asked, his voice soft. Natasha's jaw tightened, and then she nodded stiffly.

"He's ok," she said finally. "He…it's been a bit of a rough road with the aftermath of the Loki mind control thing, so…" Her voice trailed off as she kept her gaze forward. She pursed her lips slightly and swallowed before she nodded again. "He's ok."

"Does he know you're ok right now?" Steve gently asked. Natasha glanced over at him, shaking her head.

"No. We haven't been in contact since all of this started. Too risky," she said.

"He's probably having an easier time dealing with not having talked to you than Tony is with Grace," Steve said in an attempt to comfort the Russian. A smile flickered over Natasha's lips, and she gave a soft laugh as she brought her arms up to cross them over her chest.

"You're right," she said. "I can only imagine how Stark's freaking out right now. I'm surprised he isn't here right now."

"I think he knows better than to interfere with anything Grace is involved in if she hasn't asked him for help. He knows she'd ask him for it if she thought we needed it," Steve replied. Natasha frowned.

"We _do_ need his help," she said.

"We do," Steve agreed, "but you know how Tony gets with the government."

"And that makes sense," Natasha answered.

"Hey." Grace walked up to them, silent and confident as she approached.

"Hey. You ok?" Natasha asked as she turned to look at the dark-haired agent. Grace met her eyes, and she nodded firmly.

"Yeah." She walked up to the other side of Steve. And typical of Grace Marks, she plunged straight into the business side of things. "We need to come up with an extraction plan."

"Extraction plan?" Steve asked, confused.

"For Emma. We need to get her out of HYDRA's grasp as soon as possible," Grace replied.

"I definitely agree with that," Steve said. "But how are we going to do that _and _take down HYDRA all at the same time?"

"It's called a challenge, Steve. We all like challenges. That's why we're Avengers." Grace's tone brightened the slightest bit as she looked back and forth between her two teammates. "Except for Sam."

"Wait, where _is_ Sam?" Steve asked.

"Entertaining Fury, last time I saw him," Natasha answered. "And he's kind of like an honorary Avenger, I'd say."

"I'd second that," Grace agreed. "So. Shall we? We still have to fill Fury in on everything that's happened."

Natasha nodded, finally grinning. "Let's get started."

* * *

"This man _declined _the Nobel Peace Prize. He said peace wasn't an achievement—it was a responsibility." Disgusted, Fury threw the old photograph of Pierce onto the table in front of him. As soon as he'd been told everything that had happened, he'd demanded to get out of bed to help map out the plan to destroy HYDRA, and that was exactly what he was doing. He leaned forward and surveyed the team around him. "See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues."

"We have to stop the launch," Grace spoke up. She looked up at Steve for back up, and his eyes met hers, silently telling her that he agreed.

"I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore," Fury remarked as he opened a briefcase beside him. Steve curiously took in the sight of three small disks lying on a bed of black velvet.

"What's that?" Sam asked.

"Once the helicarriers reach 3,000 feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites, becoming fully weaponized," Maria explained as she showed them an active diagram of what was going to happen.

"We need to breech those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own," Fury continued, and he gave a nod towards the chips in the briefcase.

"One or two won't cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work. Because if even one of those ships remains operational, a whole lot of people are going to die." Maria solemnly looked at everyone as she explained what was going to happen. It sounded easy, Steve thought, but he knew it wouldn't be. Nothing with SHIELD was ever easy.

"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA," Fury added, and he gestured towards the chips. "But to get past them and insert these server blades, then maybe—_just maybe_ we can salvage what's left—"

"We're not salvaging anything," Steve angrily interrupted as soon as he realized what the director was saying. "We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick, we're taking down SHIELD."

Fury stared indignantly at the Super Soldier. "SHIELD had nothing to do with—"

"You gave me this mission. This is how it ends," Steve interrupted again, his voice and stance authoritative. "SHIELD's been compromised—you said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose, and nobody noticed."

"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave?" Fury demanded irritably. "I noticed."

"How many paid the price before you did?" Steve asked as he stared at the man he'd once put all of his trust in. Fury stared back at him for a second, and then he looked away before glancing at Maria and then back up at Steve.

"Look, I didn't know about Barnes," he quietly admitted.

"Even if you had, would you have told me?" Steve countered. "Or would you have compartmentalized that, too?" He paused and narrowed his eyes slightly as a thought came to him. "Did you know about Emma's parents being HYDRA?"

Without looking away, Fury nodded. Steve's jaw tightened, and he gazed unwaveringly at Fury. "Exactly. SHIELD. HYDRA. It all goes."

"He's right," Maria quietly interjected with a somewhat regretful, cautious look on her face. Fury turned his head to the side to look at her, taking in the sight of her agreement. His gaze travelled over to Natasha, who leaned back in her seat and gave him a hard look, and then to Grace, whose stone-cold expression said more for her than any amount of actual speaking would. When Fury looked at Sam, Sam held his hands up.

"Don't look at me," he protested. "I do what he does. Just slower."

Fury's eye returned back to Steve, and he gave a quiet, nearly silent laugh as he shook his head. "Well." He leaned back in his chair, his face calm and resigned. "Looks like _you're _giving the orders now, Captain."

Steve felt all the eyes of everyone else on him, and suddenly, he felt as though he were back in the 1940s, and these weren't the eyes of the Avengers looking at him but those of the Howling Commandos. In the back of his mind, he could picture Bucky looking at him, supportive and proud and ready to follow him wherever he led them. He could picture each and every face of the team he'd led back then and how they'd looked when they'd awaited their orders, fully trusting him. He got that sense of being back with them again as he looked at the faces of those around him, and he knew they trusted him to call the shots now.

"Prepare to leave," he said. "We can draw up the plan on the way there."

"So quickly?" Sam asked.

"Well, we're a little pressed for time, but we've just got to work with what we have. Be ready to leave in 10 minutes." Steve watched everyone jump into action. This was his team now, he thought to himself. These people in front of him were the only ones he had who were here to help him destroy HYDRA, and he had to say that he wasn't regretting a single member on that team.

And as he thought about his new team, he thought of Bucky, and he knew he needed to get outside. Turning, he walked to the closest elevator and took it up to get to the top floor that led to the outdoors bridge overlooking the dam. He had to get out of there. Taking down HYDRA meant that something could happen to Bucky, and he didn't want that to happen at all; Bucky may have been the Winter Soldier, but Steve couldn't fight the feeling that underneath it all, Bucky was still Bucky.

The elevator reached the top floor, and Steve walked out onto the bridge. There was quiet stillness all around him; there were no signs of human touch anywhere except for the dam itself. Everything was quiet. Steve couldn't help thinking that Emma would have liked it here. She loved being in nature, and this place seemed right up her alley.

Thinking about Emma, he moved his jaw around. If he lost her, he didn't know what he would do. She was the one thing he had going for him here in 2014. She was it. Bucky had been it for him back in his original time period, and now it was Emma, and if both of them were taken away from him, he didn't know how the hell was supposed to make sense of anything. Bucky had once been there for him when no one else had been, just the way Emma was now. As Steve stood out on the bridge, he remembered back when his mother had died, Bucky had offered to let Steve move in with him, and he'd told Steve that he didn't have to handle everything alone.

_I'm with you till the end of the line, pal_.

"He's going to be there, you know." Sam's voice brought Steve back to the present.

"I know," Steve gravely answered.

"Look, whoever he used to be, the guy he is now…I…" Sam paused, unsure of how to proceed. "I don't think he's the kind you save. He's the kind you stop."

Steve was quiet for a few seconds. "I don't know if I can do that."

"Well, he might not give you a choice," Sam said, the implications of his statement clear. Steve knew that Sam was saying it could get down to just the two of them, and Bucky wouldn't give up until one of them was dead. Steve understood that, but he wouldn't let it get that far—no. He could get through to Bucky first. "He doesn't know you."

Steve turned and looked at Sam, his face serious. "He will." He looked back out over the dam. "Gear up. It's time."

As he started walking away from Sam, the former soldier spoke up. "You going to wear _that_?"

"No," Steve answered, humor entering his voice for the first time since everything had happened. He glanced over his shoulder. "If you're going to fight a war, you've got to wear a uniform."

He knew exactly the uniform he needed to complete this. It was the only one that made sense. Steve Rogers, Captain America, was going to end this the same way it had begun.

* * *

Emma was still thinking about her parents when the door opened, and Sharon walked in, her pace brisk and professional. She waited for Sharon to say something, but the woman didn't; instead, she crossed towards Emma, and she pulled Emma up to her feet, yanking her arms behind her back and putting them in handcuffs.

"What the hell—" Emma's words were swallowed as Sharon urged her forward and began walking with her towards the door.

"The prisoner is not to leave this room," a guard said with a frown as Sharon started to cross out of the room with Emma. Sharon gave the man a bored look and pulled a paper out of her breast pocket.

"Pierce's orders," she said. The guard took the paper. As he read over it, his frown deepened, and he glanced back up at Sharon.

"We received orders that Emma Carroll is not to leave—"

"She's being transported. Or did you not read that on the paper?" Sharon snapped. "I can call Pierce down here if you'd like, but he's pretty busy getting everything taken away for Insight's launch today. Would you like to draw him out of his important meetings just so he can come down here and give you the same orders these papers give you?"

The guard narrowed his eyes at her, but he handed the paper back. "No, ma'am."

"Thank you, sir." Sharon moved Emma farther down the hall, walking quickly and authoritatively down the hall.

"Where are you taking me?" Emma asked. Sharon didn't answer; instead, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a device that looked like a cell phone, and she began pressing some buttons. "What is that?"

"Be quiet," Sharon quietly hissed. Emma stared in shock at Sharon as they rounded the corner and started walking towards the door that led to the stairway. Fear filled Emma's throat as she thought about where she could be going. For all she knew, Sharon could be taking her to Steve. Oh, God, what if HYDRA had found him, and they were going to take her to him to watch them torture him?

Swallowing hard, Emma tried to push those thoughts out of her mind as she kept walking. Steve couldn't be caught that easily; for God's sake, he'd taken down a jet all by himself. Just him and his shield. She'd seen the footage—she knew that he didn't give up easily, so she had to just keep her faith in him strong. As Sharon started walking up the stairs, dragging Emma with her, Emma started stumbling to keep up with the agent. They walked up two flights of stairs before Sharon came to a door etched in the side of the stairwell wall, and she opened it, pushing Emma inside.

For a second, all Emma could see was darkness. She heard the door shut behind her, and then the sound of a string being pulled to switch the lights on caught her attention. A dim light bulb lit up the space around her, and Emma saw Sharon pulling her hand away from the dancing string that now bounced around in the air after having been pulled.

"What's going on?" Emma asked.

"Quiet," Sharon cautioned again, though this time her voice was gentler. Emma couldn't see much in the half-darkness, but she could see that she and Sharon were in tight quarters. Looking frantically around her, she was able to determine that they were in some kind of janitor's closet, even though it looked like it hadn't been used in years. With wide eyes, she turned her attention back to Sharon as Sharon moved behind her and started unlocking her handcuffs.

"See those clothes off to your right?" Sharon asked in a whisper, ignoring Emma's question.

"Yeah," Emma shakily replied, half-nodding as she did so. She could barely make out the clothes in the low lighting, but she was able to see something.

"Put them on," Sharon said. Emma's wrists were free again, and she quickly drew them in front of her, looking over her shoulder suspiciously at Sharon as if she were afraid that Sharon would decide to put the cuffs back on her. Sharon gazed steadily at her and then glanced at the clothes. She gestured towards them with her head. "Go on. They're just clothes."

Cautiously, Emma positioned herself so that she could see both Sharon and the clothes as she crossed towards the pile on the floor and picked them up. The clothes were all black and made out of thick, stretchy, breathable fabric. A thought came to her, but she shook her head; it was too crazy to make sense, but as she lifted the entire piece of clothing off the floor, the idea she'd come up with seemed to be the only thing that would match.

"This is a SHIELD uniform," she said quietly.

"Put it on," Sharon said.

"What the hell's happening?" Emma demanded in a whisper.

"We don't have much time. I don't know how long it's going to be before someone realizes that you're not in the interrogation room, and they'll start sounding the alarms. We've got to get you undercover as quickly as possible," Sharon whispered back. Emma blinked as she realized what Sharon was saying. Looking back down at the uniform in her hand, she had to consciously remind herself to breathe.

"You broke me out?" she asked.

"Something along those lines," Sharon replied. Emma looked back up at her, and she saw the softness in Sharon's face. Sharon nodded towards the uniform. "Come on. We don't have a lot of time at all."

Immediately, Emma sprang into action. She began pulling her shirt up and over her head, discarding it on the floor before she started unbuttoning and unzipping her jeans. "So you believe me. That I don't know anything about what happened to Director Fury."

"No," Sharon honestly answered. "I don't. But if you and Steve are hiding what really happened, there's got to be a good reason for it."

Emma shoved her pants off and slipped on the black boot socks lying on the floor beside the pair of SHIELD-issued boots Sharon had also put in there. "What made you decide that?"

"I've been living across the hall from you guys for months. I've followed any news stories on you two, read all the biographies on Captain America, watched all the documentaries…I needed to research any possible threats, any possible weaknesses. Captain Rogers does what's right, and so do you. You wouldn't keep something from SHIELD unless it were for a good reason," Sharon quietly but quickly explained.

"This isn't SHIELD anymore," Emma corrected as she pulled on the black pants over her legs.

"They may not be, but _I _am," Sharon said. She folded her arms over her chest, patiently waiting for Emma to finish getting the rest of the tricky SHIELD uniform on. "I joined SHIELD because I stand behind its principles. I want the same things that SHIELD wants for this country and for its people. Those people out there that are claiming to be SHIELD want something different—they want what this…this HYDRA wants. But I stand with SHIELD."

"Sounds up my alley," Emma quipped, shoving her feet into the boots. She picked up the bulletproof vest and looked at it before looking up at Sharon helplessly. "I have no idea how to put this on. Or the fancy holsters."

"Let me." Sharon stepped forward and fastened everything into place without so much as batting an eyelash. Emma felt her throat grow tight as she realized everything Sharon had risked in getting her out of that interrogation room. It didn't escape her notice that this was highly dangerous—highly illegal—and that they could both be killed if caught.

"Thank you," she said out loud.

"You're welcome," Sharon replied as she tightened the thigh holster around Emma's leg. "Is that comfortable?"

"Yeah, that should be fine," Emma said, looking down at it. As Sharon stood up, her eyes scanning over Emma to make sure that everything was correctly in place, Emma looked down at herself, too. "Why'd you break me out, anyway?"

"Call me sentimental," Sharon replied with a smirk. "Ok. You look like a SHIELD agent. Guns specialist, if anyone asks. Put your hair in a low bun."

"Roger that," Emma said, and she lifted her hands up, effectively sweeping it back into a ponytail and securing it into place. Sharon handed her a black baseball cap with the SHIELD logo across the front. Emma looked at it, pausing to look at the symbol. This was a symbol that had once made her feel proud, a symbol that had made her feel like she was doing something good for people. And now it seemed as though it meant nothing. HYDRA had been growing inside SHIELD all this time, and Emma had probably helped it. Hell, just the fact that her parents had been HYDRA meant that she'd helped contribute to its growth.

Sharon stepped back again and scanned over her. "Keep your bri—"

"Keep your brim down low, and your face up high," Emma interrupted with a smile. Sharon gave her a surprised look, and Emma grinned wider. "See, I'm not completely useless. Steve told me that one."

"You're not useless," Sharon said. "You just have a different skill set."

"In this department, I'm definitely useless." Emma looked down at the gun in her thigh holster. "I don't even know how to shoot a gun."

"Well, hopefully you won't have to do that. If so, let me handle that," Sharon replied. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the last thing: an ID. Leaning forward, she clipped it to the right side of Emma's chest. "There. Welcome to the team, Agent Diane Harvey."

Emma glanced down at the ID and lifted it, tilting her head to the side to study it, and she grinned. "Huh. That does kind of look like me."

"Stay beside me as much as you can. If anyone wants to know, you're shadowing me. If we get separated, just walk confidently through the halls and look like you know what you're doing. Look like you have a mission in mind, ok?" Sharon asked. Emma nodded, her throat starting to tighten up as she realized the danger that lay outside the door once they opened it.

"Ok," she replied.

"Good. Ready?" Sharon did one last visual check.

"It's now or never, huh?" Emma asked.

"Now or never."

"Then I'm ready."

When Sharon opened the door, Emma's heart was pounding loud and hard in her chest. She thought she'd reached the point of no return before, but now was the defining moment for her. It would be so easy for her to mess up, to blow her cover, and this was when she couldn't afford to do it at all. All these years she'd joked and said that she was a nurse who had somehow found her way into a superhero action film, but it was no longer a joke.

Her parents had been spies, and because of her parents, she was now in the situation that she was in. If it hadn't been for them, she wouldn't have gotten a job with SHIELD. She wouldn't have met Steve. She wouldn't be running from the government as one of their most wanted people. And yet, she couldn't help thinking that maybe this was where she was supposed to have ended up this whole time. This moment, this one defining moment that she was undertaking right now, was what she'd been leading up to.

So when she stepped out into the stairwell, leaving the dark closet behind her, she stepped into the role her parents had left behind for her.


	12. Down

**Shoutouts to fluttershypegasus1, Lilybear3121, lovefairytail007, Nashira Kozoroh, Niknak, MsRose91, Jo, Layla347, JasmineChyanne, and the cruelworldwelivein for reviewing!**

**So remember how much I love those cliffhangers? Well, try not to hate me too much. Please.**

**I know this chapter's shorter than usual, but you'll see why at the end. Also, if you read _Shaped by Things to Come_, you'll see how the foreshadowing towards the end of that story really comes to light here. Again, please don't hate me too much. Please. Please, please, please.**

**As always, keep leaving your thoughts and opinions. Your feedback keeps me motivated, and I love getting it so I can know what you guys like and want more of.**

**If you want extra emotions while you read, listen to "Latch (Acoustic)" - Sam Smith. I think the song provides a beautiful contrast to this chapter, particularly the Steve and Emma parts, so feel free to listen to it, but prepared for the emotions it'll provoke.**

**Enjoy! =)**

**(Please don't hate me.)**

* * *

Chapter 12

Steve felt a lot better once he had his old uniform on. In the back of his head, he could practically hear Emma freaking out over how he was about to ruin a piece of history by running headfirst into modern warfare wearing it, but hell, he decided—he was just going to make even more history with it. There was no way something like HYDRA infiltrating SHIELD would go down without being written about somewhere at sometime. If he beat them, that was.

Grace had happily volunteered for the task of getting his uniform, and he'd readily agreed to the idea because it made the most sense. Grace was the stealthiest out of the bunch, and she'd be able to sense any guards, alarms, or laser trips that might be surrounding his uniform. So in the amber-eyed agent had gone and out she'd skipped back with his entire uniform thrown over her shoulder and a wide grin on her face.

"Piece of cake," she'd said, handing him the familiar pieces of clothing.

And as Steve plunged into the heat of battle that awaited him, he felt that this was the right thing to do.

* * *

Emma walked down the halls of SHIELD beside Sharon, and she tried to keep her face calm and focused. _Look like you have a mission in mind_, she told herself over and over in her brain. _Look like you have something to do, somewhere to go_. She passed numerous agents, all of them bustling and looking worried and busy, but none of them seemed to notice her.

For the first time in a long time, Emma got a sense of what it was like to be anonymous again. She'd been living her life in the spotlight for the past two years, but here, dressed as a SHIELD agent, she was blending in. She was no different than any other agent around her as far as the others were concerned, and it was a beautiful feeling for the naturally introverted nurse who no longer had a choice about who knew her name and who got to take her picture.

"We're headed to the Control Room. The helicarriers for Insight are being launched, and that's where I'm supposed to be right now," Sharon muttered quietly to Emma. Keeping that same professional, somewhat aggressive air about her, Emma nodded quickly in response to Sharon to let Sharon know that she'd heard. _Head up, brim down_, she reminded herself.

As she continued walking down the hall, it crossed her mind that this was what her parents had done—this was the life they'd led. Realistically, Emma knew that they most likely hadn't had to do undercover work, but the life of a SHIELD agent was what both Thomas and Leah Carroll had known and lived every day of their adult lives. And Emma found herself noticing that the feeling she had inside was kind of how she'd felt when she'd graduated high school, that of coming full circle.

The thoughts crossed her mind as she walked into the heart of the Control Room beside Sharon, still keeping her brim down as low as she could possibly get it without it looking suspicious. Her instinct was to glance over at Sharon and play off of what the other woman was doing, but she forced herself to keep her gaze forward and her peripherals focused on Sharon to keep herself under the radar.

She followed Sharon to one of the control panels and looked up at the screen, reading over everything that was happening. A lot of it was over her head, but from what she could tell, the whole situation didn't look good. Insight was about to launch, and even though she didn't know what Insight was, she had a feeling that it wasn't a good thing in the slightest.

And then it happened.

"Attention all SHIELD agents. This is Steve Rogers."

Steve's voice came loud and clear over the intercom, and Emma stopped breathing, her face completely still as she heard him speak.

"You've heard a lot about me over the last few days. Some of you are even ordered to hunt me down. Emma, too. And I think it's time you know the truth. SHIELD is not what we thought it was. It's been taken over by HYDRA. Alexander Pierce is their leader. The STRIKE and Insight crew are HYDRA, as well. I don't know how many more, but I know they're in the building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want: absolute control. They shot Nick Fury, and they kidnapped Emma and brought her here, and it won't end there. If you launch those helicarriers today, HYDRA will be able to kill anyone who stands in their way. Unless we stop them. I know I'm asking a lot. The price of freedom is high—it always has been. And it's a price I'm willing to pay. And if I'm the only one, so be it, but I'm willing to bet I'm not."

Silence. His speech was over. Emma's heart started pounding rapidly in her chest, and she knew she needed to get out of there. After a speech like that, the agents would notice her right away, and she couldn't risk being seen. But the silence after Steve's speech was so long, and everyone was so still that she knew she couldn't move to get the hell out without drawing attention to herself.

Suddenly, Emma saw Rumlow stalk back into the room. She held her breath as she watched him walk swiftly and purposefully towards her, his eyes level and steady. For a second, she thought she was going to have a heart attack right then and there from how hard her heart was ramming against her ribs from the fear. But Rumlow didn't notice her. He walked up to an agent who was sitting just a few feet away from where she was standing beside Sharon.

"Preempt the launch sequence," he ordered. Out of the corner of her eye, she looked at Sharon and saw the agent looking back worriedly at her. "Send those ships up now." Rumlow paused and looked at the agent he'd just spat orders at, watching how he looked around nervously. "Is there a problem?"

"Um—" the agent gasped out.

"_Is there a problem_?" Rumlow loudly stressed. The tension was so thick in the room Emma could practically hear it expanding with each passing second.

"I'm sorry, sir," the agent stuttered, clearly terrified. Shakily, he inhaled and exhaled several times. "I'm not going to launch those ships. Captain's orders."

Without missing a beat, Rumlow pulled his gun out and held it to the agent's head. "Move away from your station."

Suddenly, Sharon moved forward, her gun drawn, and she held it out to Rumlow's head. "Like he said. Captain's orders."

"You picked the wrong side, Agent," Rumlow growled fiercely. Nervously, Emma looked around her. Sharon was no longer beside her, and she felt strangely vulnerable without Sharon's guaranteed protection. Plus, she was out in the open, and all Rumlow had to do was look over at her, and he'd notice her standing there. Hell, she was out in the open, and all of the other agents had their guns drawn and pointed at each other, and she was the only one without her gun out. Everyone was ready to shoot, and she would be stuck in the crossfire.

"Depends on where you're standing," Sharon said quietly. For a moment, no one moved. The only sounds that Emma could hear were of her own breathing, and she was sure that every other agent in the room could hear her breathing, too. But then Rumlow lowered his gun, and he dropped it to the ground. The gun clattered, and Emma jumped the slightest bit at the loud echo of it. Rumlow was surrendering.

Suddenly, quicker than Emma could even blink, he pulled a knife out and slashed Sharon's arm with it. Sharon let out a sharp cry, and shots began firing all around Emma. Quickly, she pulled out her gun and started whirling about, helplessly turning around herself. She had no idea what the hell to do—this wasn't what her training had been. Chaos was breaking loose all around her, and all she could do was stand there helpless.

That was when she spotted Rumlow typing something furiously into the computer, and it hit her that he was launching the helicarriers. Before she could think twice, she acted strictly on impulse.

"Rumlow! Hey, Rumlow!" she shouted over the roar of the gunfire. Startled, the HYDRA agent lifted his head, and he spotted her. Emma took her hat off, her blonde hair in its ponytail shining in the fluorescent lights of the SHIELD facility as she revealed herself to him. "Surprise."

"You bitch!" Rumlow shouted, and he lunged.

"Emma!" Sharon shouted. She'd fallen to the ground to retrieve her gun after Rumlow had slashed at her, and as Emma started to run, Rumlow started to give chase. Without thinking twice, Sharon stuck her foot out and effectively tripped Rumlow. He didn't fall all the way, but it was enough of a distraction to buy Emma a few more seconds. The last time she saw Emma, Emma was turning a corner, her blonde ponytail bouncing behind her. "Goddammit, Emma!"

Rumlow brought his hand up to his ear, and he pressed his comm device. "Emma Carroll is loose in the building. I repeat, Emma Carroll is loose in the building."

* * *

Within seconds, the announcement was being made over the loudspeaker for the entire building to hear.

"Emma Carroll is loose in the building. Stop her at all costs."

Steve's entire body tensed when he heard the announcement, and he looked up at the ceiling as if the ceiling were an actual entity that had delivered the news to him. "Emma."

"We're initiating launch," Maria Hill's voice said into his ear. He had already started running towards the helicarriers with Sam by his side, but the second he heard that Emma was out in the Triskelion and being hunted by all the HYDRA agents, he wanted to turn back and go get her.

"Steve?" Sam shouted beside him. "Steve, man, we gotta go!"

"Emma's in there!" Steve shouted. "Hill, get someone after Emma!"

"On it, Cap," Maria said back smartly in his ear. Swallowing, Steve forced his body to move again. He had a duty as Captain America to fulfill, but as he ran towards what he was supposed to be doing, he couldn't help feeling as though he were turning his back on what he was supposed to be doing as a boyfriend and a fiancé to the woman he loved.

"Hey, Cap. How do we know the good guys from the bad guys?" Sam suddenly asked as they ran.

"If they're shooting at you, they're bad!" Steve shouted back to him. Behind him, he heard Sam's Falcon wings extend, and then Sam was gone. Steve neared the edge that dropped off to where the helicarrier would be coming out beneath him. He was running as fast as he could, and then he was jumping, falling over the edge and down to the solid ground beneath him.

His feet landed hard, and he curled himself forward into a roll, tucking and rolling to take off the force of the impact, and then he was up and running again. So far, so good, he thought to himself as he ran. He'd somehow made it this far without anyone trying to kill him, and that was a good thing. If only his luck were always that good.

And as soon as the thought crossed his mind, the shots began to rain on him like hail.

* * *

Emma ran as fast as she could. She'd never considered herself to be particularly athletic, but she summed up every ounce of athleticism in her body, and she used it. She ran because her life depended on it, and she did not have any intentions of dying that day at the Triskelion while dressed like a SHIELD agent. She turned a corner, slammed into the wall, and kept running.

It struck her as funny that every time she'd been forced to run the mile for school, after the first 30 seconds, her lungs had burned, and she'd felt as though she couldn't take another step without falling, but now, she'd been running at high speed for the past five minutes—down halls, stairwells, through doors, and down more stairwells—and she wasn't feeling any of those symptoms. She knew that her adrenaline was high—God, was it high. She'd never felt more pumped in all her life.

Deep down, she could feel her left thigh start to ache from all the exertion, but she pushed through it. Technically, she probably shouldn't have been running when she was still pretty much in physical therapy to get her leg back to normal after the accident, but in that moment, she wasn't thinking about that at all—the only thing on her mind was survival.

Still running, she glanced over her shoulder and saw Rumlow gaining on her. Panic filled the back of her throat, and she dashed forward.

"You can't run forever, Emma!" Rumlow shouted. Emma didn't even know where the hell she was running. All she knew was that she needed to.

A set of double doors burst in front of her, and she pushed through them without waiting. What she saw on the other side nearly made her stop in her tracks. There in front of her were the helicarriers. She could hear Rumlow catching up behind her, so she didn't have long to make her decision. She could either stay still and let Rumlow catch her, only to be taken back to the interrogation room where she'd deal with even worse situations than what she'd been through initially, or she could keep running and see where it lead her.

She chose the second option. Lurching forward, she started running up a set of flimsy metal stairs that led up to the helicarrier. Since it looked like they were going up anyway, maybe it would be better to be on one of them than down there on the ground at the Triskelion. She looked behind her and saw that Rumlow had stopped following her; either he'd lost her, or he was stalking her. Only one of those options sounded appealing to her, but she didn't stick around long enough to find out. She ran onto the helicarrier.

* * *

"Falcon. Status."

"They're engaging!" Sam yelled back into his comm device as he tried to steer away from the bullets that threatened to ground him. He zoomed as far and as fast as he could, quickly spinning and lifting and falling whenever he could to get away from them. "Shit."

He swooped down to the deck, kicking one of those damn HYDRA agents over in the process, and he pulled out two guns, firing them at the men who were firing at him. Some things never die, he realized as the act of shooting came back into his body. Yes, he was too much a military man to ever really forget it.

"Alright, Cap, I'm in," he announced. But he spoke too early. A jet appeared out of nowhere, clearly focusing in on him. "Shit!"

Without wasting half a goddamn second, Sam turned, and he accelerated as quickly as he could. Dodging bullets from the ground was one thing, but dodging bullets from a jet was a completely different story that he didn't want to have to go through again. Flying, he soared beneath all the wings of the planes around him until one of the jet's bullets hit a plane near him, and the explosion knocked him out of the air. A frustrated cry escaped from between his lips, and he rolled to the ground.

The jet came flying towards him, and with one swift roll, he was up and falling over the edge, spreading his wings and shooting like the badass superhero he believed himself to be. As he flew over another helicarrier, he saw a flash of blonde hair in a ponytail that he could have sworn to be Emma.

"Hill, what's the status on Emma Carroll?" he shouted.

"Grace is in the Triskelion right now trying to find her, Falcon," Maria replied.

"Yeah? 'Cause I swear I just saw her on one of these helicarriers!"

"Sam, what did you just say?" Steve's voice came over the comm.

"I could be dead ass wrong since I'm flying pretty fast, and I've got a jet literally on my ass trying to blast me out of the sky as I speak this very sentence, but I could've sworn I just saw her on board one of the helicarriers!"

"Look out for her! If you find her, get her the hell out of here!" Steve shouted.

* * *

Emma was starting to regret her thought that maybe she was safer up on the helicarrier when the torrent of bullets started firing. She couldn't see where the hell she was, who was firing, or what they were firing at, but she was suddenly much more exposed than she'd been back in the Triskelion. Frantically, she looked around her. There wasn't much for her to hide behind, but she couldn't just stay out in the open. What the hell had she gotten herself into?

* * *

"Alpha locked!" Steve confirmed. God, where the hell was Emma? "Hill, what's Emma's status?"

"Grace is looking everywhere for her and can't find her. She can't even sense her in the chaos that's happening. She's being shot at while trying to find Em. We're trying, Cap." Hill sounded panicked, but Steve tried not to let it affect him. She'd be ok. Emma was always ok. God, she was the only thing that kept him ok.

* * *

Emma saw the Winter Soldier before he saw her. She saw him standing on top of a jet with his metal arm gleaming in the sun unlike anything she'd ever seen before. She saw him look down into the cockpit of the plane, lift his hand, and then shoot the pilot inside. Nausea suddenly overwhelmed her, and her body jerked. Clapping a hand over her mouth, she kept her eyes glued to the Winter Soldier, watching him. He didn't seem to be looking her way, and she knew if she stayed where she was, she'd be killed in a matter of minutes. So she turned, and she started to run to find her new cover.

* * *

"Charlie Carrier's 45 degrees off the port bow," Hill said, her voice bringing Steve back to the task at hand.

"Hey, Sam! I'm going to need a ride!" Steve shouted. He ran along the edge of the helicarrier. Beneath him, he could see the last helicarrier. All he needed to do was get on board, replace the disk, and they'd be ok. That was all he needed to. As he ran along the edge, he glanced down, and he saw a flash of long blonde hair. For a second, he thought he'd imagined things because surely, he hadn't seen what he thought he had. But then he saw Emma. She was dressed in a SHIELD uniform, and she was running faster than he'd ever seen her run, but it was Emma. "I found Emma! She's on board Charlie Carrier!"

"What the hell is she doing there?" Maria asked, her voice filled with shock.

"Hell if I know!" Steve replied. He kept running along the edge of the helicarrier, his light blue eyes glued to Emma. She was running, trying to hide behind the wreckage of planes that was starting to accrue. Even from this distance, Steve could see that she was terrified. His eyes started scanning the helicarrier—what was she running from?

His throat tightened as soon as his eyes landed on the Winter Soldier. On Bucky. He saw Bucky stand on top of one of the jets, and he saw Bucky turn slowly, catching sight of Emma. And then Bucky lifted his gun, and he pulled the trigger.

Steve didn't hear the shot. He didn't hear the loud snap of the gun being fired. He didn't hear Sam asking him when he needed a lift. He barely felt the heat all around him coming from explosions and fire and things he couldn't even describe.

All he could do was watch as Bucky's bullet hit Emma, and she went down, her body going still as she hit the ground.


	13. Failed

**Shoutouts to Layla347, Lilybear3121, Jo, NikNaks, cheryl72, Guest, thecruelworldwelivein, Thatshippingfangirl14, Eva7673, jdho2, lovefairytail007, fluttershypegasus1, thatcrazyginger, bellapaige88, and MsRose91 for reviewing!**

**I know that this is much quicker than I've been updating, but I wanted to get this out to relieve anxiety (my own included haha I get so attached to my characters. Is that weird?) and because there will only be like, one or two chapters left in this story. However...I wrote the first chapter to my Bucky/OC story, and I'm dying to get that uploaded, so be on the lookout for that =) I haven't picked a title yet, but as soon as I figure out the title, I'll let you know if you're interested in reading it.**

**So remember how I ended last chapter with a cliffhanger? I ended this one with a cliffhanger, too. Please don't hunt me down and kill me!**

**If you want extra emotions, listen to "What Sarah Said" - Death Cab for Cutie and "Falling Slowly" - Glen Hansard and Marketa Iglova in that order!**

**Keep leaving your reviews! I love reading what you guys think, what you like, what you want more of, etc. Each of you has such valuable feedback.**

**Enjoy! =)**

* * *

Chapter 13

"Emma!" Steve stood still as he watched a pool of blood slowly start to form around Emma's unconscious form. "Emma's been hit. I repeat, Emma's been hit."

"What? Oh, God," Maria said over the comm, her voice thick. "Steve, stay with us. I'm getting Grace to the Launchpad right now. Falcon, can you get Emma to the Launchpad?"

"On it," Sam replied. Steve watched in frozen horror as Sam suddenly swooped down from above, grabbed Emma, and then flew away with her. "I'll be back for you in a second, Cap."

"Just get her safe. For God's sake, get her out of here!" Steve shouted into his comm device. "Hill, get me a direct line to Grace so I can talk to her."

"Steve—"

"_Now_." There was no question for argument in Steve's voice, and he waited for Maria to do as he'd ordered. In a flash, Sam was back. Steve saw the blood that covered the former soldier's clothes, and he felt sick. He knew that was Emma's blood. He couldn't get the image of Bucky shooting her out of his mind. Bucky had shot Emma.

"I'm here, Cap. I got her safe with Grace," Sam said, and he swooped down and grabbed Steve, lifting the Super Soldier up into the air to deliver him to Charlie Carrier.

"Steve?" Grace's frantic voice filled Steve's ear, and he felt his heart sink.

"Grace. What's her status?" he demanded.

"Oh, Jesus. Fucking hell, there's—there's blood everywhere. Oh, shit," Grace mumbled shakily. "She's not breathing, and there's no pulse."

"Fix it, Grace!" Steve snapped.

"I'm trying—oh, fuck. _Fuck_. Steve, the bullet hit her heart. I don't know what—"

Steve's feet landed on the ground, and he heard Sam's wings fold up behind him as they walked across the deck of the helicarrier. Frowning, he put his hand up to the comm device in his ear. "Grace?"

"Steve, I cut the line," Maria said back.

"What? Why did you cut the line?" Steve asked, still walking. He glanced over at Sam and saw Sam picking up on something that Steve didn't want to. Maria paused, and then she spoke.

"Steve, I'm so sorry."

"No. No, that's not good enough," Steve snapped. "There's got to be something…"

"The bullet hit her directly in the heart. There's nothing…I'm so sorry."

Steve didn't get the chance to reply, nor did he get the chance to react the way he wanted to. Out of nowhere, he received a hard kick to the side, and he was flying over the edge of the helicarrier. He reached out for anything to keep him on board, and at the last second, right when he thought he was going to plummet down to the ground, he grabbed on. He couldn't see Sam, but he could hear fighting engaging up top.

"Cap—Cap, come in, are you ok?" Sam asked, his voice frantic and panicked. Grunting, Steve pulled himself back up to safety. He couldn't feel—he could barely even breathe.

"Yeah, I'm here. I'm still on the helicarrier," he replied. "Where are you?"

"I'm grounded," Sam regretfully answered. "The suit's down. Sorry, Cap."

"Don't worry. I got it." Steve began to run because that was the only thing he _could _do. Maria and Grace had to be wrong about Emma. Emma couldn't be dead. She'd survived a plane crash, a gas leak explosion, and a car accident. She could survive this. She had to. And so the only thing Steve could do to help her was get this last helicarrier taken care of. He had to secure the safety of the people. Again, it crossed his mind that his duty as Captain America was coming before his duty as Steve Rogers.

If he were a normal person, he would have been with Emma. Actually, if he were a normal person, they wouldn't have been anywhere near the helicarrier. They would have been living out a normal life without any idea what SHIELD really did and how they really controlled your lives at the end of the day. All of these thoughts passed through Steve's mind as he reached the level he was supposed to switch the disks on.

And there in front of the server panel was Bucky. Steve felt his throat tighten as he looked at his best friend, the best friend who had just shot a bullet through Emma's heart. In that moment, his eyes locked with Bucky's, he knew that Maria and Grace were right.

"People are going to die, Buck," he said out loud, his voice surprisingly steady. "They already have. That girl you just shot out on the deck? That was the girl I was going to marry. And she's…she's dead now." He swallowed hard. "I can't let more people die. Please don't make me do this."

Bucky stood still, not moving, not speaking. Steve knew he had to make the first move, and so he did. He flung his shield at his best friend, only to have it returned back to him after bouncing off of Bucky's metal arm. Steve had no other choice than to fight, so that's what he did. He got Bucky backed up into a corner, but Bucky fired a gun, effectively clipping Steve's side.

The pain blazed through him, but it was more of a distraction than anything. At this point, Steve was welcoming any kind of physical pain to get him out of his mind. Anything would hurt less than the emotional pain that was starting to spread from the center of his chest out through every muscle of his body. He shouldn't have been here fighting Bucky—he should have been with Emma. He should have done so many other things differently, and now he couldn't.

Bucky was a better fighter than he had been. As soon as Steve pushed him off long enough, he went to the server panel and began typing in the command to bring up the disks. It didn't take long for Bucky to come back, though, and they were back to fighting. Steve surprised himself as he fought—Bucky had just killed Emma, and here Steve was able to focus on the mission. And yet, he knew that that was the exact reason Emma had died. She'd died because he'd been too good at being Captain America. Because he'd saved others, she'd had to die.

He kicked Bucky back again and raced towards the disks, slipping one out right as Bucky bounced back, slamming his metal fist against the top of Steve's shield. Suddenly, after punches and stabs were thrown, Bucky let out a feral cry, and he charged Steve, pushing him back over the railing and downwards. As Steve hit the metal surface, the disk fell out of his hand, and he could see it slide just past Bucky's arm. His shield had fallen away from him in the process of the fall, and now it was hand-to-hand combat that he had to deal with.

Bucky shoved him down, and as Steve went sliding past the disk, he reached out and grabbed it before hitting the edge. Relentless, Bucky was there, and they were fighting, and then the disk was falling again. A string of curse words went through Steve's head as he twisted Bucky's arm back. He flipped up and over himself down to the glass floor where the disk lay, and he ran towards it.

Behind him, his shield came flying at him, courtesy Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier. It hit him squarely in the shoulder, and he went flying forward. As Bucky started to fire his gun, he held his shield up in a defensive position, crouched down behind it to protect himself. The bullets stopped, and Steve took his opportunity to fling the shield at Bucky, only to see Bucky deflect it with his metal arm. Jesus, it didn't even slow him down. He kept right on walking towards Steve, a knife in his hand.

Steve barely felt the bite of it when Bucky plunged it into his shoulder after he ducked several punches from him. He was thrown against the wall, and he grunted at the force of impact. He took a few moments to breathe, looking over his shoulder to find Bucky going after the disk. He couldn't just stand there, so he didn't. He grabbed Bucky and lifted him up by the throat before flinging him down to the ground. For the first time, he had leverage above his best friend. He had Bucky's arm twisted back and his face twisting forward, and Bucky had no choice other than to drop the disk or have Steve break his arm.

"Drop it!" Steve ordered. Bucky tried to hit him, but it didn't quite work. "Drop it!"

When Bucky didn't drop it, Steve applied the right amount of pressure, and the snap that sounded, mingled with Bucky's pained cry, let the Super Soldier know he'd effectively broken his arm. His throat tightened again—in a way, it had been back like when they were kids, and they'd wrestled. Bucky had never gone too hard on him because even though they'd been little, Bucky had been aware and conscious of Steve's illnesses and physical condition. And yet, Steve knew that this was nothing at all like when they'd been young. He'd just purposefully broken Bucky's arm, and Bucky still hadn't dropped the damn disk.

Steve tightened his arm around Bucky's neck to knock him out. If he restricted Buck's oxygen long enough, it'd knock him out but not kill him. There was no way Steve wanted to kill him. Even though every time he looked at Bucky, he saw Bucky pulling the trigger on the shot that killed Emma, he didn't want to kill him. He couldn't. This wasn't Bucky—this was whatever Pierce and HYDRA had made Bucky become.

Bucky thrashed, trying desperately to get Steve to let go, but Steve didn't. It was only a matter of seconds, but soon, Bucky was passed out, and the disk was free. Without wasting any time, Steve snatched it up, and he began to run. There was only the mission to complete. That was all that mattered now.

"One minute," Maria said in that same panicked voice from earlier into Steve's ear. He leapt up to the metal railing and flipped himself up and over, running up towards his next goal. Suddenly, a shot rang out, and Steve went down, a cry releasing from his throat. He glanced down and noticed the back of his thigh bleeding. If Steve had had the kind of mouth Grace Marks did, he would have muttered something, but he could barely even think about anything but the mission, let alone the pain. In that moment, he didn't even feel it.

He just got back up and kept running. Another shot fired as he leapt up to the next level he was supposed to reach in order to get back up to the disks. His arm swung free, and he saw more blood. Forcing himself to keep moving, he gritted his teeth and swung up to the last spot. Bucky could keep shooting all the damn bullets he wanted to—Steve was going to complete this goddamn mission if it was the last thing he did.

"Thirty seconds, Cap!" Maria shouted as he reached the disks, bleeding and starting to feel the physical pain.

"Standby," he groaned in response. The pain was really starting to set in, and he knew he was crazy for thinking this, but he was actually welcoming it. He leaned against the metal structure as he began fiddling with the disk to get it out. "Charlie—"

Another shot rang out, and he was down. This time, however, he felt the pain immediately. His breathing started to get shaky, and he forced himself to look down towards his center, where he now felt physical pain starting to burn brighter than any other kind of physical pain he'd felt before. There in the center of his torso was the shot. Bucky had shot him in the gut. Steve remembered stories from the war. His friends and fellow soldiers had always said that a gut shot was the worst shot you could ever get due to the pain, and now, he couldn't say that he could argue with them.

He struggled to find air, to focus his mind. He had to do this. He had to complete this mission. He hadn't been able to save Emma, but he could complete this mission. Somehow, he found the strength to lift himself up to his feet, and he moved painfully towards the disks, the correct disk in his hand. As he reached the rest of the disks, one thought went through his head.

_This is for you, Em_.

And with a click, he slid the disk in place. Gasping, he fell back to the ground. "Charlie—locked."

"Ok, Cap, get out of there," Maria ordered, her voice still somewhat panicked.

"Fire now," he said weakly. _I'm sorry, Emma. I'm so sorry_.

"But Steve—"

"Do it!" Steve roared, interrupting Hill. "Do it now!"

There was a pause, and then the helicarriers' weapons all began to fire at each other. Weakly, Steve pushed himself to the railing, and he held on, his blue eyes closed. He'd completed the mission. As usual, he'd succeeded as Captain America but failed as Steve Rogers. And he found that he didn't care about what happened to Captain America now that Emma was dead because of him.

The shots ricocheted all throughout the helicarrier, and he had no choice but to hold on. Suddenly, a loud cry rang out, and he looked down. Bucky was pinned beneath a metal structure of the helicarrier. Steve paused. He might have failed Emma, but he wasn't going to fail Bucky. He moved himself to where he could easily drop down, and he released the railing, letting himself fall painfully to the metal below. He staggered over to the metal piece that had fallen on Bucky, and he put his hands underneath it, and he began to pull up.

Within a few seconds, Bucky was able to roll himself out, and Steve lowered the metal back down, ignoring the pain all over his body inside and out as he did so. He looked at Bucky, saw how Bucky wasn't even looking at him. "You know me."

"No, I don't!" Bucky roared, and he punched Steve with his good arm. Steve went down, and then he got back up, breathing hard and gasping for air.

"Bucky. You've known me your whole life." He staggered backwards. Bucky paused, and then he punched Steve again as he let out another cry of defiance. Steve fell, but he steadied himself against the debris. "Your name…is James Buchanan Barnes."

"Shut up!" Bucky screamed, throwing another punch that knocked Steve all the way down to the ground. Even though it was killing him, the Super Soldier pushed himself back up to a standing position, and he pulled his helmet off. He turned to face Bucky.

"I'm not going to fight you." He dropped his shield, not even bothering to watch it fall out of the helicarrier and down to the Earth. "I know you didn't mean to kill Emma. You're my friend."

Bucky stared at Steve with a horrified look on his face. Steve had no idea whether or not Bucky actually recognized him, but he didn't care. He wasn't going to fight Bucky. This just wasn't how it was supposed to happen. So Steve stood there, and he watched Bucky stare at him with horror. Bucky let out another frustrated cry, and he tackled Steve to the floor.

"You're my mission," he growled, and he began to punch Steve with his metal arm. And Steve let him. He lay motionless as Bucky's metal fist collided with different parts of his face over and over, and he couldn't bring it in himself to care. He'd always had Bucky, and then he'd had Emma. Now he had neither. Bucky paused, looking down at Steve with his arm lifted high, and Steve took his opportunity.

"Then finish it," he choked out thickly. "'Cause I'm with you till the end of the line."

Bucky's eyes grew wide, and for a moment, it looked as though he were going to say something, but he never got the chance. A piece of debris fell down and broke the glass on which the two men were fighting, and Bucky grabbed on to the metal beam as Steve began to fall.

Everything happened in slow motion. He couldn't hear anything, and he could barely see anything, but he knew he was falling. He could feel the wind through his hair if he really concentrated enough. As he looked up at the helicarrier, barely registering it in his mind, he realized that this was how he was going to die, and he was glad. Emma wouldn't be there to mourn his death, to see the footage of him dying. He hadn't even been there with her at the end.

He knew that realistically, he was soaring down to the water beneath him—was that water, or was that the ground—but he felt as if he were falling slowly, so slowly he had an eternity to figure out how to say goodbye to the one thing he'd never wanted to part with.

And so as he fell, he thought about Emma.

As he hit the water, he pictured Emma's face.

_I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I love you so much. I'm sorry_.

The last thing he saw before he let the water overtake him was the already fading memory of her smile.

* * *

Back on the helicarrier, Steve's comm device lay where it'd fallen right after Bucky had punched it out of his ear. And right as Steve stopped fighting, Maria Hill spoke.

"Steve? Steve, do you copy? Emma's alive. I don't know how—Grace got her back, but even so, she's in rough shape. Steve? Steve?"


	14. Promise

**Shoutouts to Eva7673, Layla347, lovefairytail007, TiaraAphrodite, cassari, cheryl72, Lilybear3121, meaplessx, NikNak, MsRose91, Thatshippingfangirl14, fluttershypegasus1, thecruelworldwelivein, thatcrazyginger, jdho2, Nashira Kozoroh, sweetpea42, and bellapaige88 for reviewing!**

**Wow, y'all, that was an amazing amount of feedback!**

**Ok, this is it. The last chapter. I've actually never been so sad to end a story before. I've had so much fun writing this, and I love writing Emma, so it's bittersweet for me to say goodbye to this story. However, that doesn't mean this is the end of the road. I'll be writing the next installment of their journey after _Avengers: Age of Ultron _comes out so I can stick to canon for future stories with them. So if you're interested in keeping up with them, feel free to Follow/Favorite me here or on archiveofourown (my username there is ThoughtfulConstellations).**

**Lastly, I will be uploading the first chapter of my Bucky/OC story either tonight or tomorrow! I picked a title, and the title is (drumroll, please): _Chemical Error_. I'm super excited to start that one, and there will most likely be involvement with Steve and/or Emma in that story. If you're interested in keeping up with _Chemical Error_, again, feel free to Follow/Favorite me to get email updates since I'll be posting tonight or tomorrow.**

**Alright, so this is a super long Author's Note, but you guys have been amazing. Thank you for all the awesome support and the kind words. Y'all keep me going, and you've helped make this story what it is. Thank you so, so, so, so, so much from the bottom of my heart.**

**Please don't hate me for the ending! It's probably not quite what everyone's expecting. Let me know what you think, as always!**

**Enjoy! =)**

* * *

Chapter 14

"I love you, Steven."

Steve felt warm lips kiss his neck, and he sighed as the usual sense of calm and peace that he associated with Emma's touch rushed over his skin. He felt her lightly and gracefully crawl onto his lap, her knees falling open on either side of his hips. Opening his eyes, he was greeted by the sight of Emma with her blonde hair down and hanging around her face, a huge smile lighting up every feature. He noticed that she was wearing an old shirt of his, and he smiled.

"I love you, too, baby," he murmured softly. She leaned forward and kissed him deeply on the mouth, her hands sliding around to the back of his neck. Steve let out a small groan, and he ran his hands up her back, noticing that she wasn't wearing a bra beneath her shirt. "You trying to kill me, Emma?"

"Mm-mm. Not at all," she mumbled against his lips. "You fell asleep on the couch."

"This is a hell of a way to wake a man up." Steve smiled even brighter as she kissed him quickly on the cheek, laughing softly as she did so.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Yeah. You could give me a heart attack. I'm an old guy. I can't handle all this excitement," he said seriously as she started laughing even harder.

"Happy 28th birthday, old man," Emma said as she slowed her laughing into small giggles.

"Technically, I'm—" Steve didn't get to finish his sentence because she covered his mouth with her hand.

"Mm, don't bring up how old you are on paper," she said with a grin. "In my mind, you're 28 today."

"Whatever makes you happy, honey," he replied. His eyes glanced down to her shirt. "I sure like what you're wearing, though."

"I like what you're wearing, too," Emma said sincerely. Her hands slid down his chest and to the bottom of his shirt. Her face turned overly innocent as her fingers slid up beneath his shirt to touch his bare skin. "I just like you better without it."

Her smile was so bright that it illuminated the room. Suddenly, everything was growing brighter and brighter, and then the image was gone.

* * *

Steve no longer felt lighthearted and calm from his memory. He felt heavy and groggy and painful. His eyes were closed, but he could hear some unfamiliar music playing nearby. Where was he? Slowly, he forced his eyelids open, and he saw that he was in a hospital room. Off to his right, he saw Sam.

"On your left," he mumbled. Sam turned and looked at him, his face spreading into a smile.

"There he is—Captain America," he said with a laugh. "Man, you had us real nervous there for a while."

Steve blinked several times as he mentally ran an assessment of himself. His memory was foggy as he tried to remember what exactly had happened. And then it hit him. It hit him the way Bucky's bullet had struck him in the stomach—the same way Bucky's bullet had struck Emma.

"Emma—oh, God. Emma." His chest constricted, and he struggled to take in a breath as the panic and grief overwhelmed him. In seconds, Sam was standing next to him.

"Steve? Steve, listen to me. Emma's not dead. She's alive. Grace brought her back. Emma's alive," he said quickly, speaking so quickly that Steve wasn't sure he understood him. Steve gazed at Sam with wide blue eyes.

"She—she's alive?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah. It's a miracle, man. That girl of yours is alive," Sam replied with a smile. "You just missed one of her cookie cutter cousins in here about half an hour ago coming in to check up on you. That aunt of hers is just as funny as she can be."

"Where is she?" Steve started pushing the blanket off of him when Sam took hold of his arm.

"Are you sure you're in any kind of shape to move? Let one of the nurses come take a look at you first," Sam said. Steve shook his head emphatically.

"I don't care if I need a wheelchair. I'm going to see her," he said. "Is she awake?"

"Not really. She's still healing. It'll probably be a few hours before she's awake," Sam said slowly.

"Still healing? What happened to her? How'd Grace get her back?" Steve asked. He knew he was firing off one question after the other, but he didn't care. He needed answers, and he needed them now. Sam looked reluctant, and he sighed.

"Will you at least let me get Grace down here to talk to you before you go up there?" he asked. "Please. Just listen to Grace's side, and then you can go see your girl."

Steve stared at Sam for a few seconds, and hesitantly, he nodded. "Ok."

Sam whipped out his phone and fired off a rapid text message before shoving it back into his pocket. "She is going to be _real _happy to see you up and awake again. There wasn't any huge chance you were going to die, but you were in a really rough place when she and Hill found you on by the river."

"What the hell happened?" Steve asked with a frown.

"You tell me. The ladies found you passed out and shot to hell in the mud. They didn't know how you got there or anything. Grace said she saw an extra pair of footprints in the mud, but she didn't have time to examine them or anything since her main focus was getting to you," Sam replied. Steve processed the information with the frown still on his face. Before he got a chance to reply, though, Grace stalked into the room.

"Oh, thank God. You're ok," she said with a happy sigh. Her hair was half-wet and hanging down around her shoulders, but otherwise, she looked totally normal. "I was so worried about you."

"What happened?" Steve asked. "I'm glad you're ok, too."

"Well, it's a long story," she said slowly. She sat down in the chair beside Sam and leaned back into it, her amber eyes staring hard at Steve's face. "I should probably start from the beginning, shouldn't I?"

"That'd be nice," Steve diplomatically replied. Grace nodded, and she let out another sigh as she took a quick glance at Sam beside her.

"Ok. Well. We'd already come up with the plan that I was Emma's extraction team. Once I got into the Triskelion, hell had already broken loose. She'd apparently escaped, and everyone was trying to find her. Some people were trying to find her to kill her, and others were trying to find her to keep her safe. Long story short, a whole bunch of people wound up shooting at me because they didn't know what side I was playing." She paused and gave Steve a wary look. "Maria finally radioed me Emma's location. Said that she was on the helicarrier, so I started making my way there when I heard she'd been shot. Sam got her to me, and…she was bad. Steve, she was shot to hell. Her heart was completely ripped in two. Bucky's bullet got her, and it got her good."

"I saw," Steve quietly added. Grace gave a solid nod.

"So you know it was bad. She was bleeding out all over the place, and she didn't have a pulse, and she wasn't breathing at all. She was dead. Flat out dead. No chance of her coming back from the dead," she said. She paused and took a breath. "The next part, you're not going to be very happy."

"Just tell me, Grace. She's alive now," Steve said gently. Grace tucked a piece of hair back behind her ear, and she took another breath.

"I injected some of my blood into her heart," she said. "You know I still have Extremis in my system, and Extremis repairs any damages like that. So I took a vial of my blood and injected her heart, and then I used one of my Scorpion Stings to jumpstart the Extremis and get it moving."

"You—you shocked my fiancée with one of your Scorpion Stings?" Steve asked incredulously.

"Honestly, I thought you were going to be more upset over the Extremis part, but yes, I knew that I'd get a quicker reaction from the Extremis if I used it, so I did," she said.

"Wait, what are Scorpion Stings?" Sam interrupted. "You told me about the blood and the Extremis, but you didn't tell me about those."

"Oh. _Oh_. Ok, so you know how Nat has those Widow's Bites?" Grace asked. Sam nodded. "Well, Tony made me my own version of those. Basically, they're just very small repulsors like the kind he has on his suits, but they're really effective when used up close. Usually, they just kind of incapacitate a person for a while, but in Emma's case, they were used to jumpstart the Extremis _and _her heart."

"What does that mean for Emma, though?" Steve asked, growing serious. "Does she have Extremis in her now?"

"That's the part where I thought you were going to be mad," she said slowly. "She doesn't have a high dosage of Extremis, but she has a tiny amount. It's not even a tiny amount—it's minute. It's only about 0.001%, but it's there."

"And what does that mean for her?" Steve asked as his frown deepened.

"Her body didn't reject it," Grace said. "But she's not indestructible. She'll probably get over bruises and cuts a lot faster than she normally would, but it's not going to like, grow back a hand if she gets it cut off."

"Is there any chance she'll overheat?" Steve asked worriedly. Quickly, Grace shook her head.

"No. Since my Serum was also in the blood I gave her, it stabilizes the Extremis, so it was already stabilized when it went into her system," she said. "She's healing a lot faster than I would have thought."

"Yeah, I told Steve she should be waking up in a few hours or so," Sam added. Grace looked expectantly at Steve.

"So…are you mad?" she asked. Steve stared at her in silence for a few seconds, and then he smiled softly and shook his head, laughing quietly as he did so.

"No," he said. "Not at all. She's alive, and she's not going to explode. That's all I care about." He paused and looked at her, his face growing serious. "Thank you, Grace. You, too, Sam. For everything. You guys didn't have to come along on this, but you did. You were there for me, and you were there for Emma, and I appreciate everything you've done for the both of us. I couldn't have done any of this without either of you."

"Damn straight," Sam said with a grin. "After this, I'm expecting an Instagram shoutout from Emma."

"Don't worry about it, Steve," Grace answered, shrugging. "That's what friends are for. We're here to take care of the shitty stuff together."

"Did I hear someone talking about friends?" Natasha stuck her head in the doorway, and she grinned. "Look at you, Cap. All awake and bright-eyed and bushy-tailed."

"I just got the best damn news of my life is all," Steve answered.

"So you heard about Emma. Grace was nervous you'd freak out on her," Natasha said blithely. "I was expecting to come in here and find a pool of blood. Tony would have flipped a shit if you'd so much as thought to hurt this one."

"Yeah, you talk to him yet?" Sam asked curiously. Grace smiled, and she nodded.

"Yeah. He's not very happy with me right now since I didn't really tell him I was going to be here or anything like that, but he's happy I'm alive," she said. "I have a lot of explaining to do when I get home."

"He'll get over it," Sam said reassuringly. Grace's smile widened.

"Yeah, he will," she said. "He's Tony."

"I need to see Emma," Steve said. "I'm feeling fine. My wounds are almost completely healed, anyway."

"Ok," Grace said without putting up a fight. "Let's go."

"Can you at least _try _to put up an argument?" Sam sighed. "I was hoping you'd try to back me on keeping him in bed for a few more hours."

Grace snorted uncharacteristically. "If Steve wants to see his fiancée, I'm not keeping him away from her. They've been through enough shit. Let love be alive."

Slowly but surely, Steve got dressed in his regular clothes, and he made his way up to the room Grace had told him was Emma's. They'd all stayed down in his hospital room to give him the privacy he needed with her, and deep down, he was grateful for it. He'd had enough of people watching them for the past few years—particularly over the past few days—and he was ready for a few moments of quiet with the woman he loved more than anything in his life.

As he walked down the hall of the room she was in, he saw a group of figures sitting out in the hall that he recognized instantly. He saw the Carroll-Gallagher family before they saw him, but as soon as they saw him, they were up and around him in a heartbeat.

"Oh, Steve! Steve, I'm so glad you're ok. We were all so worried about you!" Lacey Carroll exclaimed as she threw her arms around Steve's neck. Smiling, Steve bent down and hugged the woman who'd raised his fiancée back. Over her shoulder, he saw Alex, Laura, Dave, and Mason, Emma's other cousins and her uncle.

"I'm just glad Emma's ok," he said. "It's good to see you."

"We've had the worst time these past few days. We didn't know where Emma was, if you were ok…we were so scared," Lacey said.

"Good to see you back, Steve," Alex, Emma's oldest cousin, said with a wide grin. Steve stood and surveyed the entire family around him; technically, they weren't his family. They belonged to Emma. But yet, as he stood there with all of them around him with smiles on their faces, he felt as though he could look at them as something close to family, too.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"Oh, shit, he probably wants to see Em, and we're all here bothering him," Alex said. "Evan's in with her right now, but we can kick him out. You haven't had a chance to see her, and we've all been in."

"Is she awake?" Steve asked anxiously.

"Kind of," Alex replied. "She's drugged up pretty good on meds, and she's doing more sleeping than waking up, but she's woken up a few times."

"Alright," Steve said with a nod.

"We'll be right out here if you need anything. Just send Evan out," Lacey said as she gently placed her hand reassuringly on Steve's arm. Steve nodded at her, his heart pounding with anticipation in his chest, and he crossed towards the room where Emma was inside. He caught a glimpse of Evan sitting at her bedside, and he paused right inside the threshold of the room. Noticing someone else was in the room, Evan looked up.

"Steve," he said with a grin, and he stood up and walked over to him, clapping him on the shoulder as he shook the Super Soldier's hand. "It's great to see you up. We saw you about half an hour ago, but you were passed out."

"Yeah, I was," Steve replied as he returned Evan's grin. "I just heard the news about Emma, so I thought I'd come up here and see her."

"Oh, yeah, she's here. She's healing quickly, the doctors have been saying. She's lucky, man." Evan glanced over at his cousin, and he shrugged. "She's always had a bit of a lucky streak."

"Yeah," Steve said, even though he didn't think she was very lucky.

"I'll let you have some time with her. I'll be outside. See you, man," Evan said quietly. Steve nodded to acknowledge Evan's words, but he couldn't take his eyes off of Emma now that he'd seen her.

She didn't look very bad at all. She had a small bandage on her forehead, and she was a little pale, but other than that, she looked perfect. He crossed towards her and sat down in the chair beside her bed and took her hand in his, feeling the light weight and the warmth of her hand. A lump swelled up in his throat as he thought about how close he'd been to losing her, to losing this warmth, this sense of calm that only she could bring him.

Despite himself, tears came to his eyes, and he tried to blink them away. He'd never doubted how much he loved her; he loved Emma with every ounce of his soul, and he tried to show her every single day that he could be with her, but as he sat beside her, he knew he hadn't tried hard enough to keep her safe. He thought back to everything that had happened over the course of the past few days. He thought about everything he could have done differently to get Emma safe and away from danger.

Even so, he knew deep down that she would have still made the same choices. Had she known that all of this would have happened to her, he didn't have any doubt that she would have done the same exact things. It was then that he realized he could never truly keep her safe. Peggy's words rang through his head: _Keep her safe_.

And yet he knew that he couldn't. She would never really be safe as long as she was with him. As long as they were together, she would always be in some kind of danger. The realization hit him square in the chest, and he swallowed hard. He looked at Emma—he looked at her perfect face, and he tried to imagine life without her. Hell, he'd been willing to give up his own life after he'd thought that she'd died. He'd stopped fighting the second he'd hit the water because he'd thought that there was no meaning to his life without her in it.

He tried to imagine what life would be like if he walked away right now. How could he live if he just stood up and left Emma behind to live out the rest of her life happily with her life in tact? Could he do it? Could he give up his own happiness to keep Emma safe? He felt his eyes start to sting again, and he slowly steadied his breathing to keep himself under control. The pain of almost losing her was unbearable, and he didn't want to go through it again. He _couldn't _do it again.

Suddenly, Emma's hand shifted in his, and he was on the edge of his seat. "Emma?"

Slowly, her eyes fluttered open, and she looked blearily at him, half-squinting through the brightness of the light in her room. Steve moved his chair closer to her, and he moved so that he was in her line of vision. "Emma. Honey, are you with me?"

Her focus seemed to sharpen, and her mouth melted into a small, sleepy smile. "Steve."

"Oh, thank God." The stinging sensation behind Steve's eyes started again, and he reached out, gently smoothing her soft blonde hair back from her face. "Emma, I was so scared. I was so damn scared."

"Did I get hit with something?" she asked, wincing as she tried to move.

"Don't move. Just stay still, Em. You were shot," Steve said carefully. "You were shot through the heart."

Emma frowned. She was having trouble focusing on things, but she could see Steve fairly clearly. "I was shot through the heart? Why am I not dead?"

Steve started softly chuckling, but the sound seemed to catch in his throat. "Honey, you _were_. You were dead. Grace brought you back to life."

Emma blinked several times, and her frown deepened. "She _would_."

"How do you feel? Do you feel ok?" Steve asked. Slowly, Emma nodded.

"Yeah, I do," she said. "I'm a little sore, and it hurts if I breathe deeply, but I feel fine. Just sore and groggy."

"You have no idea how happy I am to see you're ok," Steve said quietly. Emma frown melted away, and that beautiful smile of hers was back on her face.

"You have no idea how happy I am to see _you're _ok," she said. Steve leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead.

"I love you so much," he whispered. "I'm sorry I couldn't keep you safe."

"I'm sorry I went to see my ex-boyfriend," Emma murmured out. Steve paused, and he gave her a curious look.

"What?" he asked.

"That's where I went for that one night. He lives in Maryland, and I knew SHIELD wouldn't think to look for me there. I'm sorry I didn't tell you until now. Now it's just the meds talking for me," she said without hesitating. Steve blinked several times, and then he started laughing.

"Em, I don't care," he said. "I really don't care. You're here with me, and that's all that matters. And if you'll still marry me, you'd make me the happiest man on this Earth."

Despite the grogginess Emma was feeling, she beamed brightly at him. "I wouldn't want to do anything else, Steven Grant."

Steve laughed, tears starting to form again, and before he knew it, he was laughing and crying all at the same time because he'd never felt luckier or happier in his life. At first, he'd thought that Evan had been wrong in saying that Emma was lucky, but as he saw her there so goddamn perfect and beautiful and _healthy _in front of him, he knew that Evan had been right. She was lucky to still be alive after all this time with him, and he was lucky because she still loved him enough to marry him after putting up with all this shit.

Steve Rogers had never felt lucky before, but in that moment, he felt that he was the luckiest man in the universe.

* * *

Over the next few days, Emma healed more quickly than anyone could have been hoping for. For someone who'd had her heart ripped apart by a bullet, the Extremis Grace had transferred into her bloodstream had repaired the tear by the end of the day, and she was released to go home after staying overnight.

Steve, on the other hand, was back to being fully healed before evening had even come, and he was cleared to go home the very day he'd woken up, but he refused to leave Emma's side. She kept telling him he was being ridiculous, but every time she told him, Steve told her he'd learned his lesson the first time.

Even after he took her home, he was reluctant to leave her for the first few hours. He made the phone calls he needed to make, and he talked the people he needed to get in contact with all by her side, never once leaving her except to get food or to take a shower. The first day Steve left her side, Lacey came to keep her company.

"Where'd you say he went again?" Lacey asked as she sat on the edge of Emma's bed. Even though Emma's heart had healed, she had been ordered to bed rest, and she was too much of a nurse to do anything to go against her medical orders. She felt completely fine to get up and walk around, but she didn't want to push anything, so she didn't.

"I didn't," Emma replied. "He didn't tell me where he was going. Just said he had to go take care of some business for a few hours, and he'd be back whenever he was done."

"That man has more secrets than _you_ do," Lacey said playfully. Emma smiled, and she shook her head before sobering up.

"Aunt Lacey…does all of this HYDRA stuff with my mom and dad surprise you?" she asked. The day she'd woken up in the hospital, she and Steve had broken the news to Lacey, and they'd all spent time trying to understand it.

"No," Lacey said slowly. "Well, it does, but it doesn't. Tom…I can see him easily being drawn into something like that. The promise that threats would be taken out before they actually happened? I can see him wanting to be a part of it but not because he was a bad person—because he wanted to be a _good _person."

"You think so?" Emma quietly asked. Lacey nodded, pressing her lips tightly together.

"Yes, sweetheart," she said. "Your father wasn't a bad man. Neither was your mother. It sounds appealing. Living in a world where there's no threat. It sounds amazing, and if the pitch is thrown to you well enough, then I can see how it'd be hard to refuse. If Alexander Pierce had approached me years ago with the promise of a world without danger, I might have gone for it, too. It's hard to tell."

"I guess I never really knew my parents at all," Emma said. She cleared her throat as she felt it tighten up with emotion. "It completely took me by surprise. First, I found out they were SHIELD, and then I found out they were HYDRA."

"They died trying to keep you safe, Em." Lacey reached out and put a comforting hand on Emma's ankle. "They started rethinking about what they were doing for HYDRA, and that's why they took that plane. I don't think Pierce was lying to you when he told you that. They were trying to keep you safe."

"Yeah. I guess so." Emma cleared her throat again, and she picked up the glass of water on her nightstand, and she took some swallows of it. "I just feel awful about all of this. I feel like I can't process it but…I don't know. I can't get away from it."

"I know, sweetie," Lacey said quietly. "But it's not your fault. None of this is. Don't blame yourself for anything that happened. _None of this is is your fault_."

"Thanks, Aunt Lacey." Emma smiled gently. "Well, it _is _my fault that Alex and Laura are postponing the wedding. I feel bad about that."

Lacey laughed, and she shook her head. "Oh, honey, don't feel bad about that at all. They want you in the wedding, and Laura said so what if her baby bump is showing a little bit more? They want you to be completely healthy for the wedding."

"Well, I _am_, technically," Emma said with a sigh. "I just can't get out of bed right now."

"And you stay there until you get the ok to move, do you hear me?" Lacey asked. Emma smiled, and she nodded.

"Of course," she said. "I wouldn't dare think about getting up and moving before I got medically cleared."

"I'll make sure _your fiancé _keeps me updated," Lacey said. "God, Emmy, I can't believe you're getting married. You know I called it."

"You did, I'll admit that," Emma said, her grin widening. "God, I can't believe it either. I mean, I knew it'd happen at some point because we've talked about the future before, and we've told each other that we plan on spending the rest of our lives together but…it's real now. We're actually getting married."

"It's a very happy time in the Carroll-Gallagher household these days. Well, the days that you were missing and not answering your phone…_those _weren't happy days, but now they are. You're ok and getting married. Alex and Laura are ok, and they're getting married and having a baby…it'll be just fine. You'll be ok, Emma. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but you'll be ok." Lacey gently squeezed Emma's ankle, and Emma smiled softly at Lacey.

"Ok," she said quietly. "I believe you."

"Oh, hey, I never gave this to you. I kept forgetting to every time I saw you at the hospital, but I have it on me now," Lacey said suddenly. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope. "A woman at the hospital gave this to me. She said to tell you it was from a friend."

Emma frowned with confusion as she took the envelope from Lacey, and she opened it. After she broke the seal, she pulled the paper out and saw a note written in unfamiliar handwriting. She began to read.

**Emma,**

**I'm sorry I missed you before you were conscious. The doctors updated me on your condition, and I can honestly say that I'm very happy you're going to be ok. I'm so sorry for everything. You deserve more than this, and I hope you get it. If you ever need anything, you know where to find me. Seems I enjoyed living across from you and Steve more than I thought I would. He's a lucky guy to have someone so understanding in his life. Not many people have that kind of compassion and quiet around them. I'm sorry for everything.**

**Kate, the nurse across the street**

* * *

"Why haven't we heard from Captain Rogers?"

"I don't know what there is left for him to say. I think the wreck in the middle of the Potomac made his point fairly eloquently," Natasha deadpanned. Grace smirked beside her.

"Well, he could explain how this country's expected to maintain its national security now that he _and _the two of you destroyed our intelligence apparatus," a man in a uniform said sternly to the two female agents.

"HYDRA was selling you lies, not intelligence," Grace said flippantly, handling the government the same way she handled Nick Fury: eye rolls and barely hidden smirks.

"Many of which you seem to have had some hand in telling," the man continued. Grace kept gazing steadily at the man without changing her expression. "It seems that we know a lot more about you, Miss Marks. Your background…your start…how you came to be where you are now after starting out in South America."

"Agents, you both should know there are some on this committee who feel given your service records—both for this country and against it—that the two of you belong in a penitentiary," another suited asshole said. "Not mouthing off on Capitol Hill."

"You're not going to put us in a prison," Natasha said confidently. "You're not going to put _any _of us in a prison." She cocked an eyebrow. "You know why?"

"Do enlighten us."

Natasha looked over at Grace, and she nodded, letting the amber-eyed agent take it from there.

"Because you need us," Grace said seriously. "Yes, the world _is _a vulnerable place. And yes, we help make it that way. But we're also the ones best-qualified to defend it. So if you want to arrest us, arrest us. You'll know where to find us."

With one last fiery glance around the room, she got to her feet and walked out of the room, Natasha by her side as cameras flashed frantically around them.

* * *

Steve lowered the screen of his phone and sighed. It was just like Natasha and Grace to mouth off to the government when they shouldn't have been, and yet, he couldn't find it in him to be angry or frustrated with them. Personally, he was proud of them for how they'd handled themselves, and he couldn't have imagined telling them any differently.

"Isn't that crazy?" Sam asked with a grin. "Those are the two baddest bitches I know."

"You probably shouldn't call them bitches," Steve wryly replied. Sam chuckled, and he looked at the grave in front of him.

"They'd have my ass if they heard me, but hell, I respect them for it all the more." He looked around him, only to see Nick Fury approaching them, and he looked back at Steve, nodding towards the man.

"So you've experienced this sort of thing before." Nick Fury slowed in front of the grave, and he looked down at it.

"You get used to it," Steve answered with an amused smile on his face.

"We've been data-mining HYDRA's files," Nick said. "Looks like a lot of rats didn't go down with the ship. I'm headed to Europe tonight. Wanted to ask if you'd come."

Steve paused, and he looked up from the ground at Fury. "There's something I got to do first."

"How about you, Wilson?" Fury asked as he turned towards Sam, surveying him from behind his sunglasses. "Could use a man with your abilities."

"I'm more of a soldier than a spy," Sam honestly answered.

"Alright then," Fury said on a sigh. He stuck his hand out, and Sam accepted his handshake before Fury moved on to shake Steve's hand. "Anybody asks for me, tell them they can find me…right here."

"You should be honored. That's about as close as he gets to saying thank you," Natasha's clear voice rang out behind Steve. He turned over his shoulder to see both Natasha and Grace crossing the cemetery to stand beside them.

"Not going with him?" Steve asked as he crossed the rest of the distance towards the women.

"No," Grace said with a soft laugh as Natasha shook her head.

"Not staying here," Steve said as more of a statement than a question.

"I blew all my covers. Gotta go figure out a new one," Natasha said as she smiled.

"I've got to go mend my relationship with Tony. I haven't seen him since I took off to come here for the _L'Marion Star _mission. Doesn't that feel like ages ago?" Grace asked. Quietly, Steve nodded with his own small smile on his lips.

"Yeah, it does," he said. He looked at Natasha. "It might take a while to come up with covers. For the both of you."

"I'm counting on it," Natasha coquettishly replied.

"I think I'll have more covering up to do in regards to my past and how I got here, but…details." Grace dismissively shrugged.

"That thing you asked for," Natasha said suddenly as she lifted a file in her hands. "Called in a few favors from Kiev." She handed Steve the file. "Will you do _me _a favor?" Steve looked up at her. "Take Emma someplace really nice for your honeymoon?"

"Where were you suggesting again?" Steve asked, unable to help his smile.

"Hawaii. Grace said Turks and Caicos," Natasha replied.

"I was thinking maybe someplace with a little less…sunburn. Can you picture me at the beach?" Steve asked as he winced. Grace laughed, and she shook her head.

"No, I can't. Well, you'll think of someplace good. I expect an invitation, you know," she said, lifting her eyebrows up expectantly.

"Um, me too. You're not going to get married to one of my favorite people and not invite me. I hope you know that," Natasha added. Steve laughed, and he nodded.

"Ok. I promise you'll both get invitations. I might have to fight with Emma over who gets Grace as Best Man," he answered in a playful tone.

"Actually, I'm going to fight her for that part," Sam said, and he raised his hand. Steve's grin widened, and he held the file tighter in his hand. Everyone's laughter died down, and soon it was quiet between the four as they all looked at each other, thinking about the time they'd spent with each other and the things they'd risked for each other.

Natasha made her move to leave first. Leaning forward, she gently kissed Steve on the cheek before turning and walking away. Suddenly, she turned back over her shoulder and looked seriously at him. "Be careful, Steve." She nodded towards the file in his hand. "You might not want to pull on that thread."

He watched her walk off and played her words through his head. He knew she was right—she wouldn't have given him the warning if she hadn't meant it, and Natasha didn't give warnings unless they were for good reason. He started to open the file when Grace put her hand on his wrist.

"I should head out," she said. "I need to get back to Tony."

"I'm going to miss you, Grace," Steve said sincerely. She smiled gently and shook her head.

"You're not rid of me yet, Steve," she said with a sigh. "You're my best friend. I'm not disappearing out of your life just yet. I'm here for a while longer."

"Good. I'd hope so," Steve replied. Grace's amber eyes searched over his face, and then the tiny agent pulled him into a tight, warm hug that was uncharacteristic of her. He hugged her back and smiled warmly at her as she turned to give Sam a hug.

"I'll see you guys," she said.

"Follow me on Instagram," Sam replied with a wink.

She gave him a thumbs up. "Got it."

As she walked away, Steve looked back down at the file, and he opened it. Inside, front and center, was a picture of Bucky in cryo and then a picture of Bucky looking like Bucky. He felt Sam walk a little closer towards him.

"You're going after him," Sam stated.

"You don't have to come with me," Steve replied.

"I know," Sam said. He paused, and then he looked at the Super Soldier. "When do we start?"

Steve looked up. "We just did."

"Emma know?"

Steve paused. "Not yet."

"You going to tell her?"

"I'll have to."

* * *

When Steve came back to the apartment, Emma knew something was wrong. She could always tell by the look on his face what was going on with him because he wore his heart on his sleeve. She hugged Lacey goodbye and promised she'd see her tomorrow, but she barely took her eyes off of Steve.

"What's wrong?" she asked as soon as Lacey was gone. Steve crossed to the bed and sat down in front of her.

"How can you tell?" he asked with a soft smile that didn't quite reach his blue eyes.

"You wear your feelings on your face," Emma answered. She sat up and crossed her legs in front of her, and she leaned her elbows on her knees. "Baby, what's wrong?"

Steve looked up at her with worry and pain written all over his face. "What I'm about to say isn't going to make you happy."

Emma paused, and she took a slow breath in and out. "Ok. Just talk to me. We can figure it out."

"Bucky's the Winter Soldier. I already told you that," Steve said slowly. Emma nodded carefully, still watching him. "Well, he's loose now. He's out there. He pulled me out of the water and saved my life, and he's still out there. I need to find him."

Emma realized what he was saying. "So you're going after him."

Steve was quiet for a few seconds, and then he nodded. "Yes."

"Ok," she said slowly. Steve moved forward, and he took her hands in his.

"Trust me when I say that I wouldn't do this unless I felt like I had to," he said intensely, imploringly. "I just…I can't let him be out there when I can help him. I know I can. He knows me. He just—he doesn't know it yet. But I think he did, and that was why he saved me."

"He also shot me," Emma said, still speaking slowly.

"I know. He didn't know who you were, and he isn't himself, but I can help him. Emma…" His words trailed off as he thought of how he could possibly express this to her. Her clear grey-green eyes regarded him, and then she slowly nodded.

"Ok," she said. "Go. Go after him. Find him, and get him help, but Steve, you come back to me. Do you hear me? You come back to me."

"I will. I promise I will." He touched her face and pulled her in close so he could kiss her softly on the mouth. "I always will."

"I have faith in you," Emma said quietly. "If you feel like you can get through to him, you go after him." She touched his face, her eyes skimming over his face as if she were trying to memorize every single inch of him. "I love you."

"I love you, too. More than you know. You're everything to me. I don't want to lose you again, Emma. Sweetheart, you mean the world to me. You know that, right?" Steve said. His thumb gently brushed over her cheekbone as she nodded tearfully.

"I do," she said. "And you mean the world to _me_. So go find Bucky. Get him the help he needs, and get back here, and marry me."

"I will," Steve promised. "I'll be able to stay in touch with you, and whenever I can come back to visit you, I will. This is home for me, Em. You're my home."

"Steve, while you're gone, I'm probably going to go back to Connecticut for a while. It would probably make my family feel better to have me close again," she said. Steve sighed with relief and smiled.

"Good. I don't want you to be alone here," he said.

"I won't be. I'll be with my family while I'm waiting for you." She paused and half-shrugged. "Again."

"I'm so sorry." Steve's face drew downward again, but Emma took his face in both hands, and she shook her head firmly.

"No," she said. "Don't be. I'm here for you. You saved me. Just promise me that you'll come back to me. Come back, and marry me, and be my husband."

"I promise." Steve took her face in his hands, and he kissed her deeply, reminding himself that this wasn't the last time he'd ever get to kiss her. "I promise you. I will always come find you. Every single time."

Tears started to fall down Emma's face, and she nodded. "Ok."

"I promise. You're my future, Emma. You're my past, my present, and my future. You always have been, and you always will be."

And as he kissed her, willing his heart not to break, he tasted the future of his life to come on her lips. He would come back to her. He always did.


	15. The Avengers: Emma and Steve

**Author's Note**

**Hi, guys!**

**I know I said I was done with Emma and Steve until _Age of Ultron_, but I got thinking: I never wrote _The Avengers _from Emma and Steve's point of view. I wrote a version from Tony and Grace's, but I never did from Emma and Steve's. Would anyone be interested in reading a fic that retells _The Avengers _from their point of view? I feel like I missed a big opportunity there, and if people would like to read what they thought and felt during _The Avengers, _especially because I barely focused on them at all, I would totally love to write it.**

**Feel free to let me know in the reviews or a PM either way =)**

**Btw, _Chemical Error _is up, so if you want to read that, feel free to check it out! =)**


	16. Emma and Steve Avengers Story

Author's Note

Alright, guys, I swear this is the last Author's Note for this story.

However. I just published the first chapter of _The Avengers _as told from Steve and Emma's point of view, and I wanted to let everyone know. It's called _Moments of Reality_, so if you want to keep continuing Steve and Emma's story, and if you want to know what happened to them during _The Avengers_, feel free to Follow/Favorite it and give it a try =)

Thank you guys so much for all the positive feedback. You are seriously amazing.

Also, I'm on archiveofourown under the username ThoughtfulConstellations, and I'll be updating on there, as well =)

Thank y'all so much for everything!


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